Free The Last Days of My Mother by Sölvi Björn Sigurdsson Page B

told me about the operations in Lowland. I already knew that Fred founded Libertas in the sixties, but neither the brochure nor the website disclosed its rather romantic origins. As a young man, Frederik had left his hometown in the Swiss Alps where his family ran an established hospice for the terminally ill. The youngdoctor fell out with his father and took off, travelling around Europe studying new discoveries in cancer research. A few years later Frederik had made a bit of a name for himself with his research into cell division in fungi. His father, who was a proud man to a fault, paid out Frederik’s inheritance to convey the message that they were incommunicado from then on. Fred’s road led to Amsterdam, and from there, to Lowland, where all the buildings were falling into disrepair. He bought the estate and still had enough left from his inheritance for renovations and equipment. And that was how the Dutch Innovative Research Center started, focusing on cancer research and treatment. People came from all over Europe to undergo treatment with the new methods. Dr. Fred wanted to found a different hospice from the one his family ran in Switzerland, and the neighboring estate, Highland, played a big part.
    â€œDuncan had a commune over there,” Helena explained. “He came here with some hippy dream after a family dispute in Scotland. He and Fred became fast friends. Duncan wrote a novel based on it, the proceeds are still his main source of income. You saw him the other day, snoring away in the car.”
    â€œAh, yes, him! So he is a sort of Milan Kundera after all.”
    â€œI don’t know about that. Duncan hasn’t written much more than that novel and numerous updates to the book for each reprint. It keeps him going because the book is pretty popular with the new age crowd. It sells as some sort of self-help guide. But that’s how Libertas came to be. When patients got ill at the cancer center, Duncan would bring them weed and the commune sort of merged with the center, creating a hospice like no other. If people want drugs, they get drugs. Fred monitors the reactions, keeps a log, and administers the correct doses. The dying have nothing to lose in his opinion, but not everyone agrees with him on that.”
    She fished out a newspaper clipping from her bag with a photograph of the center, and a printout of an English translation with the heading “Death is Everyone’s Business.”
    â€œI thought you’d maybe like to see this, just to know that people are not all of the same opinion when it comes to Lowland. This is an interview with the guy I was arguing with in the shop, Arthur van Österich. I translated it for you, listen.”
    She put on a pompous face and started reading to me the quote I would later paste into my diary about the trip:
    People who think that death is entertainment need to think again. If people insist on comparing life to a play they should realize that it can never be anything but a tragedy. The final act, the last setting, is the great crescendo of our suffering. To think that we can ease it by dulling the senses and numbing the pain is absurd. And I have to ask: Should an institution, the main goal of which is to do just that, have the power to deny people the last hope of conviction? Death is not a show. It is the most significant event of our lives .
    â€œIs this aimed at Lowland?” I asked when she’d finished reading and handed me the clipping.
    â€œLowland, Fred, Helga. Van Österich waltzes in and out of the center as if he’s the one and only authority on the act of dying, and then he attacks people from some philosophical point of view.”
    â€œWho is this guy?”
    â€œArthur van Österich is the Netherland’s top academic in palliative treatment philosophy. He’s been writing about this stuff for over 40 years, almost ever since Fred started running the hospice. Now he’s dying himself,