Petra was standing on a kitchen chair, feeling along the top edge of the wall-mounted kitchen cupboards. Her sleeveless dress and apron revealed part of her thighs and calves, criss-crossed with a network of thin black veins. Nothing. She lowered her arms, adjusted her dress and looked around the room from her elevated position. Where else could she look? Last time she had found it between the vegetables and the meat in the freezer, but this time that was out of the question. Carefully, she climbed down from the chair, steadying herself against the empty kitchen counter, which at this hour was usually full of cooking utensils, vegetable peelings and dishes. She stepped down awkwardly and felt a sharp pain in her ankle. That would be all she needed — to injure herself and end up in hospital.
“Did you find it?” asked Gašper, who was standing by the door.
She shook her head. “Did you look in the garage, among the tools?”
“It really can’t be there. Who would put it there?” he grumbled, but he went off towards the garage all the same.
Petra watched him thoughtfully as he left. Strange that he was not already fussing about lunch. What could she cook? The potatoes, rice and pasta were in the locked pantry, the beans too; the meat was in the fridge, and the fridge had been in the pantry since last year, when they had made room for the dishwasher in the kitchen. How was she supposed to get into the pantry? Had she overlooked another key that would unlock that door as well? She went into the bedroom and looked once again under his underwear, among the socks, under the mattress, under the rug. Nothing. She heard Gašper’s heavy steps on the stairs. When had he started dragging his feet like that? Not long ago he had been agile and nimble, almost like a young man. He had done a great deal of physical work all his life, and he was still as strong as an ox. More than once she had observed neighbours his age and felt rather proud of her husband.
With both hands she slid her palms once more beneath the mattress, although she had already done so less than an hour earlier.
He stuck his head into the bedroom. “What are you looking for?” he asked suspiciously.
“The key, darling. You know, the pantry key.”
“The key,” he repeated, as if hearing of it for the first time. “Well, where is it?”
“That is what I’d like to know too,” she smiled. She looked up at him and asked brightly: “Where would you hide it, for instance, if we were playing hide-and-seek and you really didn’t want me to find it?”
“What nonsense are you talking, you stupid woman! What would the two of us, old fools that we are, be playing at? Why on earth would I hide keys?” he muttered, and shuffled off towards the living room. “Go and cook something instead.”
Petra sighed deeply. “Yes, something will have to be made. But out of what?” She gazed out of the window towards the neighbour’s house, where Jožica was just hanging washing on the balcony. Should she go over to the neighbour? No, she certainly would not do that. She would think of something.
“Make fried chicken,” she heard a lively voice call from the room.
Petra sighed again. Fried chicken, yes, of course. Remember where you stuck the key and you’ll get it, she muttered to herself. How on earth could she open the pantry? The window was high; perhaps it could be done with a ladder. But no, they were too old for such acrobatics. Besides, the neighbours might see them.
How could she have overlooked that last key in an internal door, she reproached herself. She had already searched for the keys to the locked doors twice. The first time she had not understood. Well, nor the second time, really, but she had realised that this was his new game, one she had to accept. That was when she had put away all the other keys. Except the pantry key. When her purse had disappeared some time ago, she had easily found it under his mattress. A month earlier, she had missed her bank card, which she had carelessly left on the shelf beside the bills. That had been harder to find. After a whole day of searching — they had both been looking — she found it wedged between the books. Just in case, she made a copy of the card. She didn’t know how that could help, but in that moment she couldn’t think of anything more sensible.
What could possibly be going on in his head that made him hide things around the house, she often wondered. Had he really forgotten where he had hidden the object, or was it perhaps all a game? For the first time, it had even made her doubt herself. What if this was happening to her? What if she was the one hiding things and forgetting?
When she returned from the bedroom, he was sitting on the sofa, leafing through the newspaper. He could not see her when she moved the hand on the wall clock back by half an hour. He would certainly look at it very soon. His rumbling stomach would remind him — more accurate than a Swiss watch. They always had lunch at twelve, but today it was clearly going to be a little later.
Petra spent a while opening kitchen cupboards and drawers, then smiled with satisfaction. She would make vegetable soup and salad. In the kitchen cupboard she found an old tin bowl, pulled a small knife from the drawer, put on low rubber boots in the hallway, and went out into the garden.
She set the metal bowl down on the vegetable bed. A strange sound, as though metal had struck metal, stopped her mid-movement just as she was about to cut off a head of lettuce. She lifted the bowl and saw it. The key was stuck in the earth like a little plant which, with careful tending, would sprout, grow luxuriantly, and in summer burst into bloom with a multitude of keys. She laughed aloud and pulled it from the soil. He forgot to water it, she said quietly to herself, relieved. She slipped the key into the pocket of her apron. Then she pulled up a head of lettuce, cut away the root and the outer leaves that the slugs had nibbled, and went back into the house with a full bowl.
She unlocked the pantry and slipped the key back into her apron pocket. From the fridge she took out the two chicken legs that Gašper had been loudly thinking about a little earlier, and from the basket she selected five potatoes of equal size for mash. When she picked up the last one, something gleamed beneath it. Well, look at that — a bag. With two fingers, as if expecting a dead rat inside, she took hold of the rustling plastic and pulled the bag out of its potato hiding place. She lifted it high to better examine its contents. Inside the bag, whose weight could well have belonged to some small creature, there was a roll and, beside it, a bundle of papers. Carefully, as if still expecting an unpleasant sight, she opened the bag and cautiously reached inside with her right hand. Human nature being what it is, the hand, whether by chance or not, first feels for money. The roll of banknotes was bound with a yellow elastic band, the very one she had missed some time ago from the drawer of occasionally useful bits and pieces. She removed it and froze. For a few moments she simply stood there open-mouthed, holding the rolled hundred-euro notes in her hands, all still smelling of fresh print.
Then she remembered the papers. They were withdrawal receipts and bank statements in Gašper Glavan’s name. There were only three receipts, but the amounts were large.
Petra sighed deeply. She remembered Gašper’s agitation several months earlier, when he had claimed that the bank had stolen all his savings and that he had therefore cancelled the sending of bank statements. She still didn’t understand the part about the statements, but it was clear he had withdrawn the money himself and hidden it well at home. She tied the money up again with the elastic band and returned it, together with the papers, to the bag, then pushed the bag back into the basket among the potatoes. Fine, let it be that way, she murmured, closed the pantry door and went into the kitchen.
“Lunch will be ready in half an hour,” she shouted towards the living room, where Gašper was staring blankly at the newspaper.
“Finally! I don’t know what’s taking you so long,” he grumbled. “I’m properly hungry now.”
The early stages of dementia are at first barely noticeable. For example, there is the increasingly frequent search for missing objects, which takes up a great deal of time and energy for people with dementia and their loved ones alike. Gradually, more and more complications arise, especially with keys, which “turn up” in the most unusual places. The adjustments required of family members call for considerable resourcefulness, patience and, above all, kindness towards the person with dementia.