The old man dozed off. His lips were pulled back from the black stumps of his teeth, which didn’t meet anymore. His chest whistled laboriously.

‘Oh, God.’ Her mother dried her eyes behind her glasses. ‘He’s not going to make it, Vera! Can’t you see how yellow he looks!’

‘A little jaundice is normal,’ she said, not caring whether the statement was true or not. ‘Don’t show him how hard it is on you. Tell him something to cheer him up. Something about the bird.’

He opened his eyes without realizing he had been asleep.

‘Ruffy misses you,’ said her mother with clear mouth movements. ‘She’s become very unsettled. She misses being able to peck at your beard.’

A smile brightened his shrunken face.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘that is one smart bird. We’re going to keep her, aren’t we?’

Her mother’s mouth went sour.

‘Only till she gets old,’ she said. ‘You know that very well.’

When she saw how downhearted her answer made him, she put her mouth back to his ear.

‘Emmy’s daughter is getting divorced,’ she yelled triumphantly. ‘Her husband already has someone else.’

‘Well,’ he mumbled, satisfied. ‘She is, is she? Then she can come down off her high horse.’

Emmy was Vera’s cousin, a daughter of her mother’s sister. When Villy and Vera got divorced from their spouses, the aunt had bragged that something scandalous like that would never happen to her Emmy. The two sisters had always tried to outdo one another. Emmy’s mother had secured for herself a skilled laborer as a husband while the younger sister had to be satisfied with an unskilled laborer. Then it was about the children. Emmy married a reliable craftsman, while Vera and Villy had risen socially. But then the divorces happened, which were impossible to hide. Maybe Emmy hadn’t risen up the social ladder, but at least she would never get divorced. She had always been such a nice girl.

Vera hadn’t seen Emmy since they were children. And she had forgotten that she had a daughter.

‘Right, that’s what I always said to Amanda,’ yelled her mother. ‘No one is immune!’

Sister Amanda was eighty-six.

Vera felt exhausted. The sharp hospital smell was giving her nausea. Having visiting hours only in the evening was so impractical. How in the world was she going to get her mother to go directly home?

The nurse came in and straightened both patients’ pillows.

‘Visiting hours are over,’ she said quietly.

Just at that moment Villy walked in the door, broad and solid, dressed up as for a party, and with beads of rain in his black hair. Vera flushed with joy and relief. Villy had also thought about the problem. He would see to it.

‘Greetings, everyone,’ he said in his resonant voice. ‘Hello, Dad, you look great.’