We had only just been sitting in the car and I already regretted joining them. ‘And what exactly is this bankri thing?’ I carefully asked.
‘Banki,’ Veerle corrected me as she passed by a lorry. ‘It’s a Russian healing method which helps really well against muscle aches.’
‘Ah!’ I looked at Els for help, but she was staring out of the window as she sat on the back seat. She was remarkably quiet. I turned on the CD player. An odd, high-pitched noise resounded in the car, combined with the sound of waves. ‘What kind of music is that?’
Veerle held out a CD box to me. The cover displayed a man who was swimming between dolphins in clear blue water. On the backside, there was a picture of a coral reef which swarmed with tropical fishes. ‘A CD with dolphin noises,’ I mumbled.
‘And whales.’ Veerle turned the volume up a little more.
‘Of course.’
‘Very relaxing.’
It made me nervous rather than relaxed. I did not tell her. I did not feel like undergoing alternative Russian methods against muscle aches. I did not tell her. What I did tell her was: ‘I have been taking supplements for two months now, which have removed my pain and fatigue for the most part. They are natural remedies, that you can buy at the pharmacy.’ I turned around towards Els. ‘And it also improves your digestion.’
Els, who always complained about her bowels, looked up. ‘Really? And what kind of supplements are they?’
I explained to them what I had discovered about phosphatidylserine and rhodiola.
‘Did you learn that from the man you met at the MAS the other day?’
‘Yes,’ I admitted with some reluctance. ‘Do you want to try it as well? After a few weeks, you already feel an improvement.’
Els looked at me thoughtfully. ‘Maybe.’
I turned around to face Veerle. ‘And what about you?’
She gave me an odd look. ‘Let’s first see how the banki goes.’
‘Yes, of course.’ I bit my finger nails and concentrated on the landscape that passed by the window. Behind the fields, there were poplars of which the tops were filled to the brim with mistletoe. For a while, the only sounds in the car were those of whales and soothing waves. I felt a strong urge coming up to go to the bathroom.
Els parked her car in front of a terraced house in a residential area.
‘First time?’ the heavyset woman that led us into a badly lit room with a massage table asked. A large, framed picture of the Kremlin hung on the wall, as well as drawing of colorful mandalas and a painting of Matryoshka dolls. Large cracks ran across the wall and the ceiling. There was an odd smell in the room.
‘You’ll see, is relaxing.’ The woman spoke with a heavy Russian accent. At least Veerle had not lied about the origins of the treatment. Apart from that, it was still a mystery to me what was about to happen.
We let Veerle go first. It was the umpteenth time that Els and I were being towed along for what she claims would be a pioneering treatment. We had tried Bach flower remedies, had taken advice from a homeopath for a while and underwent a treatment with ear candles. My liveliest memories were those of a self-proclaimed ‘light therapist’, who had tried restoring our damaged auras by means of laying on hands.
Banki turned out to be a kind of glass lamps that were heated and placed on your back. Els and I watched tensely as the woman placed the warm, glass objects on Veerle’s back, but Veerle claimed that it was very relaxing.
‘Doesn’t hurt at all,’ the therapist, whose name was Agnessa, said about ten times. When she took the banki off of Veerle’s back, I saw that they had left dark circles. That explained the smell: it was the smell of burnt skin.
It was with some reluctance that I lay down on the treatment table. To my surprise, it really didn't hurt. When Agnessa gestured for Els to lie down, she took a step back. ‘No, thank you.’
‘You don’t need be afraid. Is good.’
‘It really doesn’t hurt,’ Veerle backed her up.
‘I don’t even suffer from back aches. It’s my bowels that I have trouble with.’
Agnessa’s face lit up. ‘I know good remedy for bowels.’ She disappeared through a curtain of beads to an adjacent room. Els looked at me, somewhat scared. I wanted to comfort her, but I was not sure if it would be justified.
To our surprise, Agnessa returned with a glass of water.
‘Drink.’
Els took the glass. ‘Water?’
‘Not just water. Crystal water.’
‘Ah!’ Veerle uttered enthusiastically. ‘What crystal?’
‘Rose quartz,’ Agnessa said, visibly elated because of her interest.
‘And that’s what’s in the water?’ I asked rather dumbly.
‘No no,’ the therapist laughed. ‘Crystal lay in water during night.’
Els pulled a long face. I genuinely felt sorry for her.
‘Water has taken energy from rose quartz.’ Agnessa flashed a beaming smile to Els. ‘You must drink and your gut will heal. Good bowel movement too.’
She had no choice. Under Agnessa’s watchful eye, she drank the glass of crystal water. After the therapist had given us some more advice about crystals that help against muscle aches, and after we had paid her 135 euros for her services, we got into Veerle’s old Peugeot again.
We had barely left before Els said that she had stomach cramps. Five minutes later, Veerle told us that her back felt burnt and a little bit later, I felt it as well. We stopped at a roadside restaurant and hurried into the toilets, where we established that Veerle and I had blisters on our backs where the therapist had placed the banki. Meanwhile, Els stayed on the toilet for a really long time.
When we were having a cup of tea later, looking beaten, Veerle suddenly turned to me. ‘What are the names of those supplements you were talking about earlier?’
I smiled. ‘They are two supplements that you have to take according to a strict formula. They are known products: rhodiola and phosphatidylserine. They are only extraordinary when combined, because it changes and improves the effect of both supplements. You simply take 1 capsule of 500 mg of rhodiola and 1 capsule of 100 mg phosphatidylserine before going to bed. Then, you leave one day in between doses and then the day after that, you take both capsules again. It’s best not to exceed that dose, because then you risk constipation. After a few days, you will start feeling better and after about five weeks, you will really feel the effect.’ I wrote down the names and doses for them on a scrap of paper.
I had a splitting headache when I came home that night and my back still burned. I took a cold shower and carefully rubbed a gel against burns on my back, as well as I could. At a time like that, I did miss having a relationship. It wasn’t a laughing matter to have to smear gel on your own back.
I mindlessly switched channels, going past a whole bunch of annoying reality programs. Finally, I turned off the sound and called Maggy. She picked up nearly immediately.
‘Mum says hi.’
Maggy had broken all contact with her parents years ago, because they just could not understand what was going on with her. A feeling I was only too familiar with, even though I forced myself to visit my parents every now and then. ‘Did you talk to them?’
‘I’ve invited mum and dad over at my place.’
‘At your place?’ As far as I knew, they had never been there before.
‘Uhu. I’ve been feeling a bit better the past few weeks. Less sluggish and sombre. So I tidied up my entire home yesterday and cleaned it and then I invited my parents. I’ve even cooked for them.’
‘Wow.’ I looked at the television screen, which was currently showing a commercial for laundry detergent. For some reason, it looked even sillier with no sound. That nearly manic grin on the faces of the women who all became enthusiastic due to a bottle of liquid laundry detergent for dark clothes. A commercial like that could only have been created by a man.
‘I’ve been taking those supplements you suggested for a while now. I think that it’s because of them. I can’t imagine what else it could be, because I’m still taking the same medication and apart from that, I haven’t done anything different.’
She did go out and get the supplements! ‘Great. I’m so happy for you!’
‘My parents were also visibly happy, even though they didn’t say it in quite as many words. They hadn’t seen me for a long time and the last time they did, I was so down that I really couldn’t pretend to be happy. And although I didn’t hear anything from them or though they didn’t show how worried they were, they must have agonized over their only child the past years.’
I imagined her mother, sitting next to the phone, waiting on a message about a young woman who had drowned herself in the Scheldt. I had always really liked her parents, especially her mother. Of course, I also noticed that they acted nicer to me than they did towards their own daughter – just like my parents, who magically became more fun and more social when Maggy was with me – but I had always pitied those people. I couldn’t imagine what they had gone through all these years. Your child, trying to take its own life, has to be just about the worst nightmare of any parent.
‘They were probably very worried about you. Some people simply aren’t that good at expressing it.’ I thought of my own father.
‘Myeah. But remaining silent for years, that’s really extreme.’
‘It is.’
‘But they’re still my parents. And with being a parent come certain responsibilities. Like occasionally contacting your children, even when they’re adults.’ I heard the anger creeping into her voice.
‘Yes, of course. Something like that is inexcusable. But it’s good that you took the first step. It shows strength. And it shows that you’re a better person than they are.’
‘I had been thinking about it for months, but I simply didn’t have the mental energy to do it. By the way, how are you doing?’
‘I’m well.’ It was the first time in years that I meant it.
When I put down my phone, a show had just started in which couples had to start up their own restaurants. I watched for some time how a man and a woman were shouting at each other in the kitchen. Then I turned off the television.