An Absent Mind by Eric Rill
In memory of Norman Rill (1913-1998), an Alzheimer’s patient and wonderful father, and Lorraine Rill (1919-2007), an extraordinary caregiver and loving mother.
“I have lost myself.”
In 1901, Mrs. Auguste D., a fifty-one-year-old woman from Frankfurt, Germany, displayed signs of cognitive and intellectual deterioration and became a patient of Dr. Alois Alzheimer. She died in 1906, and, after an autopsy, became the first person diagnosed with a form of dementia that became known as Alzheimer’s.
Part One: The Discovery
Saul
The Beginning of the End
I was always considered a bit peculiar, so no one probably suspected anything until a dreary October afternoon when I removed my gray flannel trousers, opened the front door of my house, and ambled down the street. My wife, Monique, must have felt the damp breeze floating through the hallway into the kitchen, at least that’s what she told the young resident at the hospital when she arrived at the emergency room.
I remember the astonished look of the bus driver when he refused to let me board, but don’t remember crossing in front of a black Audi. A passerby told the policeman I danced blindly in front of the bus like a kid on his way to the playground, which is amusing considering I am a large man, seventy-one years old, with a belly that strains my belt.
My recollection is that the light had turned green, but to be honest, I really can’t remember for sure. It could have been orange, maybe even red. There have been several things that I haven’t been sure about lately, like when I was standing in front of the stove, trying to figure out what to do with the pot in my hand. Then I remembered I had come in to make Monique a cup of tea, but I wasn’t quite sure how to go about it.
At my last checkup a couple of years ago, Dr. Horowitz told me we all forget things as we get older, that our brains have a defined amount of space for memory, just like a computer, and we gradually get overloaded with “stuff.” He said not to worry about it, because that would only make things worse. I took his advice, like always—after all, he had been our family doctor since … well, for a long time, that’s for sure.
Anyway, the young resident at the hospital picked and prodded his way over my body. He stuck his flashlight in my eyes and then pulled out what looked like a silver hammer from his pocket and banged on my kneecaps. All that was starting to get me upset. But then he stopped and told me to get dressed, pointing to a brown paper bag that Monique had brought from the house.
As I fumbled with the buttons on my shirt, I heard him telling Monique how lucky I was to have only a few bumps and bruises. My blood pressure had shot up, he informed her, but that was normal given the circumstances. What circumstances? I wondered.
Then he motioned her toward the nurse’s station, and they began whispering like wartime conspirators under the harsh fluorescent light. He kept jabbering, and she kept nodding. Finally, she walked back toward me, her eyes misty, dabbing at her mascara.
I had finished dressing and stood there holding the brown paper bag tightly under my arm. Monique pried the bag from me, opened it, and pulled out my gray flannel trousers.
Monique
Realization
Saul is sleeping soundly beside me now, his droopy ears hiding under the flat white hair that circles the lower part of his head. He has always been embarrassed about how large his ears are, but I think they’re endearing—a slight imperfection in his almost perfect sense of style and looks.
Our marriage has lasted for almost forty-four years—forty-four years of tsuris—that’s a Yiddish word for trouble or aggravation that Saul’s mother taught me. In this case, it’s been both.
I am French Canadian and was a practicing Catholic. Some of Saul’s friends had married French Canadians, but they all converted to Judaism. There was no way that was going to happen to me, or so I thought at the time. When we told his mother there might not be a conversion, she said over her dead body would her son marry a goy.
We didn’t have any Jews in the East End neighborhood of Montreal, where I grew up. I never even saw one until I started working at a department store downtown. My uncle Alphonse, who worked in the Garment District, used to tell us stories of Jewish men with ringlet-like sideburns they never cut and women who wore funny wigs.
About a month after I started work, Saul came into the jewelry department and asked for a Star of David. I had no idea what he was talking about. Not that my English was bad; in fact, it was almost perfect, thanks to the fact that my mother sent me to a tutor after school on the little money she saved from her maid’s salary. Saul smiled and explained it was like a cross, but for Jews. As I fumbled through the drawers under the counter, he looked down at me and asked if he could take me out for dinner the following night.
He showed up at my door on Rue Notre-Dame with a box of chocolates. The candy wasn’t for me, but for my mother. I knew she would never approve of my going out with an older man, especially an English man. And I was certainly not going to tell her he was Jewish. But he did—in the first ten minutes. A half hour later, I had to drag him out the door, out of my mother’s clutches.
You see, Saul was smoother than silk, like Frank Sinatra—a quality that has worked for and against him throughout his life. Sometimes it was just too easy for him to get what he wanted; sometimes he got it and wished he hadn’t.
That’s probably how he felt about me. He certainly chased after me, told me what I wanted to hear, what any young girl wants to hear from an older, powerful suitor. And he showered me with gifts.
One day we were walking downtown, and I admired a blouse in a shop window. He told me to wait outside, then barged through the door of the shop and came out with the same blouse in four different colors. Frankly, I would have been happier with a little more affection and fewer material possessions.
I should have realized early on that warmth would not be a cornerstone of our relationship, but I guess I was used to that from my childhood. I had no brothers or sisters, my father died when I was ten, and mother worked day and night to feed and clothe me.
We married in his synagogue after a two-year courtship, and after I converted to Judaism, but it didn’t take long for things to go downhill. There were fights—I don’t mean real fights—just constant bickering. But if you ask me if I love him, the answer would be, in a certain way, yes. And if I have been faithful, the answer is yes. And if he has been a good provider, the answer would be yes. Has he been a good father? One of the kids might say yes. Given everything, would I do it all over again? Maybe. Maybe not. But I made my choice years ago, and I am almost sixty-six and a grandmother.
In spite of it all, I thought we would grow old together. We had talked of moving out to Arizona to escape the damp winters because of his arthritis. But all that changed today.
The doctor on duty in the emergency room told me Saul should be tested for Alzheimer’s. It’s true he had been acting differently for several months—temper tantrums, hiding things around the house, telling the same stories over and over again, forgetting little things, being suspicious of me. I should have figured it out. And maybe I did and just didn’t want to face it, hoping I was wrong. But if I’m honest with myself, you don’t forget to put on your pants before you go out if you’re normal.
Now, as I lie in our bed, my head resting beside his, listening to more of a purr than a snore, I fear that the rest of his life will be short and difficult. Mine may be long, but full of worry.