I’m sure you know this association really does exist; I didn’t invent it, it’s headquartered in a Zurich suburb, I’m not going to name it because my lawyer said not to. Several Swiss organizations offer assisted suicide; this one is the best known. If you haven’t heard of it until now, pay attention; you can learn things even from a short story. You have to join the association, pay a not-negligible fee, send your medical records, which a doctor then examines to confirm that your condition is indeed terminal. After this is complete, you go there, install yourself in their only piece of actual real estate, the so-called death apartment: a room with a sofa, a bed, and a table, on which a gentle employee sets a glass of sodium pentobarbital. You drink it. Unassisted, and of your own free will.
When it comes to death, Rosalie is hard to impress. A cousin of her first husband’s shot himself in the head without realizing how hard that actually is to do, and often people survive. The angle wasn’t right and he vegetated for weeks, minus his lower jaw. Her friend Lore’s sister tried it four times with sleeping pills. Each time she tried a higher dose, each time she came to, covered in her own excrement and vomit; our bodies are strong, and the will to live more powerful than we suppose in the dark nights of the soul. And Rosalie’s nephew Frank, Lara Gaspard’s brother, hanged himself eleven years ago. His neck turned black from the strangulation ligatures, and there were deep scratch marks on the ceiling. There’s no harm in turning to the experts. So after a moment’s feeling of revulsion, Rosalie reaches for the phone.
It’s answered by a Mr. Freytag. He’s polite, soft-spoken, and tactful, and he obviously has experience with these kinds of conversations.
I should really say that I’ve invented Mr. Freytag. I haven’t called the association, I don’t know who picks up the phone there and what is said. I wanted to find out, but a vague terror always stopped me, and I felt as if I were about to do something indecent, as if I were summoning up spirits for my own amusement. In addition to which, I’m not really the kind of writer who uses real facts. Others like to be meticulous and nail down every single tiny detail, so that some shop that one of their characters is wandering past has the exact right name in the book. This sort of thing leaves me cold.
“All very simple,” says Mr. Freytag. This is the address, this is the fax number, please will she just send the medical records, a psychiatrist will then want to talk to her right away to verify that she’s responsible for her actions. After that they’ll fax her the membership agreements and as soon as she returns them, they’ll be able to arrange a date. Is there any … for the first time he hesitates. Is there any particular urgency?
The doctor, says Rosalie, has spoken of a matter of weeks.
In which case, they’ll put things on a fast track.
Mr. Freytag’s voice doesn’t waver, but is full of compassion. He’s really good at it. And why not, thinks Rosalie, he could certainly earn more elsewhere, but this must be a real vocation. She even manages to feel a flash of gratitude.
In the night, she dreams in a way she hasn’t done for years. Her blood pounds, her senses are so fevered that when she wakes up she’s almost shocked at the very memory: so many people, so much noise, and the overexcited embraces. There are faces she hasn’t thought about in more than fifty years, people who’d apparently vanished into oblivion, maybe she’s the only person alive who still remembers them. How long ago it all was. It’s really time for her to go.
And yet she can’t resign herself totally to her fate. Which is why, as dawn is approaching, she turns to me and begs for mercy.
Rosalie, it’s not within my power. I can’t.
Of course you can! It’s your story.
But it’s about your last journey. If it wasn’t, there’d be nothing for me to tell about you. The story—
Could take a different turn!
It’s the only one I know. There is nothing else for you.
Whereupon she turns away and can’t get back to sleep until it’s light. There’s nothing unusual about this, the last time she slept really well was more than twenty-five years ago.
The next days go by as if everything were normal and she still had time. Her terror slowly dissipates—or more accurately: it remains, but it loses its sharp edge and changes into a constant, dull pressure, not unlike the stomach pains that have been part of her existence for so long that she can now barely remember what it’s like to have no pains at all. That is what life is when you’re over seventy: a cramp here, a burning sensation there, a permanent sense of being unwell and stiffness in every joint.
She decides to say nothing to her daughters. They’ve been expecting her to die for a long time now, you have to be realistic. She’s sure they’ve had detailed discussions about who will organize the funeral and where she’s to be buried. They’ve dutifully begged her more than once to be sensible and move into a retirement home, but because Rosalie can still manage perfectly well on her own and retirement homes are expensive, their urgings have lacked conviction. So why burden them now, why have family reunions, tearful hugs and goodbyes? It will be so much better and cleaner if a sober letter from Zurich tells them that the long-anticipated event has now occurred.
She arranges to meet her two best friends, Lore and Silvia, for coffee and cake. There they sit, three old ladies, one afternoon in the best café in town, talking about their grandchildren. After a certain age, you only talk about your family. Politics and art become abstractions that no longer have anything to do with them and are left to the younger generation, and your own memories suddenly feel too personal to be shared. Which leaves the grandchildren. Nobody is interested in anyone else’s but you listen, so that you’ll have the right to talk about your own.
“Pauli’s talking already,” says Lore.
“Heino and Lubbi are in kindergarten,” says Silvia. “The kindergarten teacher says Heino paints just wonderfully.”
“Pauli’s really good at painting too,” says Lore.
“Tommi loves playing cops and robbers,” says Rosalie. The other two nod, and although they’ve known Rosalie for thirty years, neither of them asks who Tommi is. There is no Tommi. Rosalie invented him, she has no idea why. Nor does she know if children today still play cops and robbers, she suspects it’s anachronistic. She decides to ask her real grandson next time she sees him, then realizes that she’s not ever going to see him again. Her throat tightens, and for a little while she’s unable to speak.
To distract herself, she looks in the gold-framed mirror that’s hanging on the wall. Is that really us? These little hats and crocodile handbags and eccentrically made-up faces, these fussy gestures and ridiculous clothes? What happened? Just a moment ago we were like everyone else, we knew how to dress, we didn’t have these idiotic hairdos. That’s exactly why, thinks Rosalie, everyone likes that eccentric detective Miss Marple—she’s the absolute incarnation of unreality. Old women don’t solve murders. They’re not interested in the world, and they no longer have any desire to understand events. Every woman who hasn’t got there yet thinks she’s going to be different. Just as we did too.
They say goodbye to one another, for they’ve been sitting here for almost an hour and it’s making them all nervous to have been away this long from home. As she stands up Rosalie looks at herself in the mirror once more: a heavy jacket, although it’s summer, a waterproof rain hat, although it’s not raining. And why is this purse so enormous, when there’s almost nothing in it? Even her clothes signal that she’s superfluous, a vestige, a human residue. You’ll be next, she thinks as she gives Silvia and Lore each a kiss, wishes them luck with grandchildren and backaches, and walks across the street.