I open my eyes and my first glance falls on the calendar. Wednesday!

God, I hate Wednesdays.

Every Wednesday I have to go through the rigmarole of visiting Bessie in the hospital, to feel old wounds opening up and renewed hopes dashed. This is my Calvary. Every Wednesday!

And yet, I wouldn't miss a visit. Would it make any difference to Bessie's condition if I did? Would she notice at all if I didn't go? Probably not. But maybe she would. Only God knows.

Despite my misgivings I am always counting the days until my next visit, the next Wednesday. Like a mouse on a treadmill. That's me.

The hospital of St.John's looks like a big old castle from the outside and neglected military barracks inside. Gold-yellow leaves, fallen from the oak-trees, cover the ground where we would sit and chat with Bessie just six months ago.

The closed section of the hospital is on the ground floor. I ring the bell and a long-time patient, trusted as keeper of the key, opens the heavy door and greets me as an old acquaintance.

"Hello Joseph, how are things?" I say. He knows what I'm interested in.

"Bessie is in bed. She doesn't want to get up," he tells me.

"Is she sick?"

"No, she just didn't want to get up."

A barefooted, gray-haired woman in a hospital gown passes by and offers me a pair of slippers. "Are they yours?" she asks.

"She took them from somebody but doesn't remember who from," explains Joseph. "This is going on all the time," he adds. He is speaking and acting as if he is the doctor, not one of the patients, goes through my mind as I leave him and go toward the room Bessie shares with three other women.

Bessie is lying in bed with her eyes closed. Should I wake her up? I ask the passing nurse what she thinks.

"Wake her up. It's good for her to have visitors. She is always happy to see you." I look at the nurse and want to see confirmation on her face, see if she really means it, but she turns away and leaves the room.

Is Bessie really happy to see me? Does it really make a difference if I come on Wednesdays? If it does, maybe I should come two or three times a week, maybe she would change back into the Bessie we knew? Here I go building up unrealistic hopes again, I warn myself. But maybe it could happen. I have to speak to the doctor about it.

While I am sitting next to the bed thinking, tormenting myself, Bessie opens her eyes and smiles at me. "How are you, darling?" I ask, and kiss her cheek. "Don't you want to get up and walk a little with me?" She shakes her head almost imperceptibly.

"At least you should sit up for a while. It's no good lying on your back for hours in daytime, too." I lift her and prop her up with pillows, thinking, My God, she is so light, she's wasting away.

She has her own maroon dust coat on, over three different nighties. None of them are hers. I know all her things, I take them to wash every week. I open my mouth to ask where she got those nighties, but decide otherwise. The doctor explained that Bessie is confused and upset when she can't give a proper answer to a question.

The grey-haired lady with the pair of slippers appears again. "Are these yours?" she asks. Bessie dismisses her with a wave of her hand. Her hand and her arm are almost translucent. Blue veins criss-cross her fine, white skin.

I offer her a mandarin and she agrees to have a few segments. It's a good sign, I tell myself. Encouraged by this, I ask her the question that keeps tormenting me, "Do you know who I am?" I hold her hands in mine and try to read in her eyes what's in her soul.

A wan smile appears on her face and haltingly, shyly, she says, "I don't know who you are, but I remember that I loved you very much. Will you come again next Wednesday?"

"I will, mother - I will come." I stutter as I try to hold back my tears.

 

 

Tim Tibor wrote Bessie after witnessing the agony experienced by his best friend whose mother was a victim of Alzheimer disease.

Tim's first published book, Hope Dies Last, is an autobiography released by Scribe Publications in Melbourne, Australia, earlier this year. The first chapter of that work appears as a short story in this issue of The Rose & Thorn, along with information on how to purchase the book. A second book, Blood Red Moon, was published on the Internet on August 8th. The full book can be ordered from http://www.iuniverse.com.

Tim migrated to Australia from Hungary in 1956, distinguishing himself in the field of Oral Implants and Biomedical Engineering. Between 1969 and 1993, he had 29 scientific publications to his credit and lectured in Australia, Japan, Singapore, Indonesia, England, Germany, the U.S. and other countries. For the past seven years he has been writing full-time, and is the author of short stories and interviews which appeared in publications such as SYDNEY LIFE, an annual anthology of the Fellowship of Australian Writers (FAW), and NEWS-WRITE, a monthly journal of the New South Wales Writers' Centre. Another story was featured in the Summer 1999 issue of The Rose & Thorn. Tim and his wife Eva have been married for 55 years and have a daughter, Agi, and son, John.