Tying Some Loose Threads…
And that was how the eventful year of 2009 concluded with my music swirling out in the mists and fog which lay thickly over the lake at the time. I felt adrift in a real sense and rudderless in my own personal fog. My actions and decisions impulsive, emotional and I suppose with hindsight, rather desperate.
For one thing, I sold my beloved house in Kalk Bay, packing up everything into boxes and moving them into various locations on 1 April 2010 – with the irony not lost on me. My Bechstein moved to J’s cottage along with many boxes which remained packed for three further years cluttering up his already cluttered life.
I could not settle, had lost my anchor and flew backwards and forwards from Thonon to Cape Town several times. The search for the Air France plane was ongoing and high-profile, several parties seeking the truth’ about what happened on that fatal flight. Various theories, assumptions and accusations flooded the media for months and then more reports of the first, then second unsuccessful attempt at finding the ‘black box’. There was a great deal at stake; a huge outlay in search and recovery efforts, and the situation became more and more acrimonious.
I kept a dignified distance from these developments, having had a brutal experience in the immediate aftermath of the disaster. The woman he had visited for the fourth and final time in Rio was a photo-journalist, and I watched with horror as Ronald’s face printed on her T shirt was flashed around the world. She was pounced on by Miami lawyers roaming around like vultures and later put forward a ludicrous claim for damages. I somehow knew at a deep level that Ronald intended this visit to be his last and that he had withdrawn from prospects of further contact. Ronald was certainly not up for a family role. That was not his plan. He had intended to ‘grow old with Marni’, as he frequently said to his family even during the recent past when we had been separated. But our de facto separation had left him vulnerable, and the consequences were difficult for him[1]. We were likely to discuss all this when we were to have our time together in Corsica a fortnight later.
The expression on his face in the photo she had taken of him and then printed on her T shirt revealed all of this to me, and the haunted, deeply disturbing look of being trapped was clear to those who knew him well. She voiced her ‘claims’ wearing his face on her chest as she tried to gain entry to the ceremony in Rio for families of victims. Thank God I had felt guided not to attend. The media loved it, and the Miami lawyers honed in on this young spirited woman – another example of the ‘Latin American widow’ syndrome.
This syndrome is a well known ‘occupational risk’ for diplomats or any unaccompanied man in international work, particularly in Latin America. I know of a high-level UN diplomat, where at the time of his death due to a bombing incident, several Latin American women stepped out of the shadows at his high-profile funeral to claim their share of inheritance as mistresses. And Ronald, my husband of twentysix years had also allowed himself to become prey to this.
My first year as a widow was difficult and uncomfortable. I must say now with gratitude that I received a great deal of gentle support from J, as well as from my sisters and close friends. I sublimated my energy into creative dreaming about how to further the work of music and healing, longing to explore this potential in relationship with J. And indeed, there were many creative moments. At his suggestion I created a structure in Switzerland, the Amani Harmonic Foundation, which made a link between peace, healing and music (Amani in Swahili means peace).
Then suddenly, around the time of the second anniversary of the disappearance of the Air France plane, there was news that the search effort was finally bearing fruit. First the remains of the plane was located at 4000 meters below sea level in a crevasse, lying between two high peaks of ‘land’-like mountains under the sea. Attention once again shifted to this story and the world once again held its breath as the difficult task of raising the bodies began, which at that depth had been preserved and were visible in the images provided by robot cameras moving through the murky depths. The first few attempts were awful as the bodies disintegrated on arrival at the surface and initial contact with air after two years of submersion. The technicians developed ways of bagging the bodies to keep them intact until teams of forensic specialists could begin to work on the long and complicated process of identification in Paris.
I was kept informed of all the developments through confidential reports to families of the victims. Initially, before the plane was located, I felt that it might be better to leave the bodies where they were and stop the search which appeared so costly and fruitless. Fifty-two persons were identified immediately after the crash when bodies were retrieved from the ocean soon after the wreckage had sunk to the bottom of the underwater crevasse. But now, there was a prospect that Ronald might in fact be identifiable. I felt the need for this to happen. I wished for the DNA samples they had taken from our apartment that day in early June two years before, to reveal the connection. Strongly. Undeniably.
The salvage operation was finally over, and all the remains of the victims were transported to a laboratory in Paris. The identification process was a delicate, international programme of collaboration involving forensic specialists from the countries of all the victims. Thirty-two countries were represented on that plane. Months went by. Of the total bodies, eighty-two were still missing. So, all around the world families waited, hoping that their particular special person was in fact among those identified and praying that they would not be disappointed after the agonising wait.
And I was also firmly in this waiting game. I now wanted with all my heart for Ronald’s body to be amongst them. I wanted his remains out of that icy grave of water off the coast of Brazil. I kept thinking how much he disliked water. He had had what appeared to me to be a phobia about water, due in large part to his mother forcing his head under a cold tap, whenever as a toddler he held his breath in anger and turned blue. This was the only method that worked, she later told me as I listened horrified to this evidence of early abuse. And she wondered why he recoiled from any physical contact with her? Over the years I had become conscious that I was actually a bridge between them.
I loved water. My earliest memories are of being carried on the back of my father, my legs trailing out behind me, little hands clasping his muscled shoulders with my body simply floating. His skin had a slight oilyness to it, and I can still feel the texture and taste the salt. Maybe it was suntan lotion? Did we do that sixty years ago? Anyway, water was very important to me. My father built us a pool even though he was in debt at the time. He wanted his teenage girls to bring their boyfriends home so he could play Beethoven for them on his impressive B & O sound system, turning on his fairy lights illuminating the pool after several whiskies and after our swim and teenage fondling in the pool in the dark. And then his daughters said goodnight and went safely upstairs to bed. I know my boyfriends loved the time they spent with my father. This was evident at his funeral just before his 58th birthday (his second Saturn return!) when I was touched to see several familiar faces of young men now in their thirties, whom I had gone out with and who had shared some of the magic and music at our home.
I had met Ronald six months after the death of my father. He was respectful and interested in my relationship and aware of the huge importance my father had in my life. He had an idea that my early disappointment with men had something to do with the relationship I had with my father. I used to think that he may have had a point, but that is another topic.
And here I was twenty-seven years later, willing fate to deliver me the remains of my husband.
[1] I had an in-depth reading of his natal chart-s with our friend Monica soon after his death, which revealed much about his emotional state and the huge pressures on him during in the period leading up to 1 June.