have a shot at it. I’m sure I could remove it with a bit of anesthesia and a jab. Afrandarius erpexoplexis! I have a considerable fungi collection. You won’t have to worry about it—I won’t kill it.”
“My mole?”
“Sure. That’s a real treasure,” he said and tapped it lightly with his forefinger. “And it will take pride of place in my collection. Right next to Ferflexus atarticus and Norgonakis felenferosis. These are the great royal houses of fungi.”
Mother cleared her throat.
“Ah, yes, well . . . Welcome to Lowland, it’s always nice to have new people.”
“I suppose that’s the way it works?” she said. “Aren’t people constantly kicking the bucket?”
“Oh, yes, death comes to us all. But it’s life that matters, milady. Life. You should enjoy it, Mrs. Briem, and have help to ease your passing if all else fails.”
“Anything but having my leg chopped off.”
“That won’t be necessary. But we are bound by the law. I cannot go beyond what my oath allows when it comes to foreigners. We sometimes send them to Switzerland, where they can offer assisted suicide to everyone. But we shall see. We should be merciful to the dying and offer remedies to those who still have hope.”
“That’s what Trooper tells me,” Mother said, still a bit wary in the presence of the doctor. “And he also tells me that I shouldn’t take offense if someone hands me a joint. But I can tell you straight away, doctor, that I do NOT do drugs.”
“Well, cannabis seems to help most cancer patients, Mrs. Briem.” The doctor chose his words with care. “And though it’s fair to say that it does nobody good to smoke too much, I do find the reluctance in Europe to acknowledge the medical benefits of the Sativa remarkable. Ukrain on the other hand—well, I suggest that we start treatment as soon as possible, first thing Monday at the latest.”
“Treatment? What do you mean?” We had discussed the Ukrain treatment numerous times back home, yet Mother still seemed clueless. “I didn’t come to the Netherlands to become a patient.”
“Of course not, you came to have fun, your son and I discussed this over the phone. But we cannot ignore that you do have a very serious disease to deal with. Ukrain does wonders in the fight against cancer. And as strange as the fear of the Cannabis sativa is, it is even stranger how much adversity my good friend Nowicky has had to contend with trying to market his remedy.”
“Nowicky?”
“One of the great minds of our time. And my Swedish colleagues . . . I should think they had other things to worry about at the Academy. Ukrain on the other hand . . . Hmm.”
“Trooper, tell the doctor I don’t want any injections,” Mother said in Icelandic.
“We’ve been through all this. You’ll have more time, maybe a year.”
“I refuse to be injected,” she repeated in English.
“You are an intelligent woman, Mrs. Briem,” the doctor said, “my glasses do not deceive me. The principle behind all our work here at Lowland is that life is more important than death. Nobody is forced to do something he or she does not want to do, but in your case . . . well it would be folly not to try the treatment. The cancer has not yet spread!”
“Trooper?”
“The doctor knows what he’s talking about.”
“Yes, but . . . injections. I just hate getting shots,” she said in Icelandic and then switched to German: “Ich dachte wir wollen einen Schnapps bekommen?”
“That is the reason we came, Fred,” the director said and smiled to the doctor. “The rest can wait until after the weekend.”
“Yes, but not a day longer! I shall join you in the lounge for a toast and then we’ll call it a day. Next week you can meet Helena and Steven. They’ll invite you to Warmoesstraat and get you what you need. What do you think of the name of their shop: Pleasure Fountain? I think it is very smart, most fitting.”
“Is that a brothel?” Mother asked making the doctor shake his head with laughter. He went on to explain that the Pleasure Fountain was Helena’s herbal remedy shop.
“She’ll fix you up with something to make you feel better,” he said. “But now I want to make a toast to your arrival at Lowland and to better health. By all means try to enjoy your weekend. Only happy people stay at Hotel Europa. So have fun. Grüss Gott!”
Chapter 4
The first night in Hotel Europa I dreamt that Mother and I were Siamese twins. I moved to the left and she moved to the left. I tried to shake loose but my body sat still on her hips, which were also my hips. Instead of four legs, we each had one leg and between them was a phenomenon that bore a striking resemblance to Albert Grimaldi, Crown Prince of Monaco. We fell and sprayed forth a million tons of blood that flowed over the earth until it went dark. I dissolved into Mother’s body—I was her and the entire galaxy at the same time. Gargantuan factories breathed black contagions over the world, and I knew they were her tumors; that was where the cancer lived. All I could do was run away. The factories turned into a white space without walls, where wine fountains in booths spewed bubbles at me. I could taste them and heard knocking . . . was I awake?
“Bankers!” Mother shouted, standing all dressed up by my bedside with a bottle of champagne in her hand. “Hah hah! I met bankers!” A wild lust for life glowed from her face and placed me squarely in the waking world.
“How did you get in?”
“In the end I had to have someone let me in,” she answered. “Mein Sohn, I said, Notfall. It’s incredible how you can sleep, Hermann. I’ve been knocking on your door since early this morning.”
“You had someone let you in? What’s wrong with you?”
“Trooper, I was trying to explain this to you. I went down for breakfast—like normal people do, and by that I mean people who don’t sleep until noon—and what do you think I hear from inside the Gold Room? Icelandic, Trooper, Icelandic! There they were, five bankers drinking champagne. So I asked if I could join them. Well, it turned out they were having a meeting, but they gave me a bottle of this. Veuve Clicquot. Don’t you like it?”
I could still taste the champagne and I realized that the final scene in my dream had not been a dream after all.
“Did you pour that into my mouth while I was asleep?”
“Something had to be done. You can’t waste time sleeping in every day. Have you seen the weather outside? Just wonderful. And the view . . . You’re a genius to have found us this hotel.”
I got up and walked out onto the small balcony, which was just big enough for two chairs and a tiny table. It was a warm day. The sun seeped through the threadbare mist that spread over the city, immersing it in soft spring air. In my soul I was at homecoming, twenty years old, drooling alcohol at nine in the morning, convinced that within half an hour my body would be saturated with liquor and love for all the dimensions of the universe. We had decided earlier that the weekend would be an adventure, sickness banished from existence, and the only
