Rome

 Here is the exquisite layering of history. 

Gods and Kings and Republics and Emperors. 

The bones of engineering marvels and civilizations. Picked clean.  

Pagan stones pilfered to line the coffers of churches. 

Papal states and their taxes and indulgences and peter pences. Loved ones bailed out of purgatory. Wealth to build and maintain empires 

Cobblestones. balast for the ships.

I feel the lives that came before me. Like voices in a house next door. Talking, laughing, chairs scraping against tile, a gentle knocking against the wall. 

And I feel the haunting of my own history. The times I came to Rome. 

The first time I came to Rome, I chewed gum and rode a double-decker bus in the rain, so excited to see everything, and sure I would never have the chance again. Then the exhilarating beauty of the Sistine. Then awestruck at Saint Peter's basilica - and the strange prayer I blurted aloud in the quiet chapel, and hurrying away in embarrassment. And later wondering if there was some actual protection in that prayer because, only hours later, I was nearly raped by the Vatican guard who offered me a ride and I, trapped and young and alone, miraculously maneuvered my way to safety. And afterwards, felt I had not been alone. 

My next holiday in Rome was after I met you. After we fell in love.

After you told me that you would ask to marry me on the Spanish Steps, and then later said we would not see each other again, because you didn't know how to get out. And I loved you and was so desperate not to lose you - and also terrified of those hidden men who had fucked with our phones, who had snatched you away, and told you things about me you should not have known. And then, when you left Naples, and I had cried and you, comforting me, said that I should come to Rome, and stand in the place where you once stood. At a triumphal arch - near the Forum. And that it would mean we were together, separated only by time. And so, I came, and I stood in that place, my heart aching with pain and longing and love. And I went to the Spanish Steps, and remembered your promise, and cried. And that night, I woke at 3AM from a dead sleep, because I heard your voice calling to me. And it was so real, and so painful. Later, you told me that you had been calling to me in the snowy woods of Doorn that night. Of course, I never know what was true. But it seemed true. And I believe that I heard you. 

 You'd decided to disobey. You'd said, "I'm breaking every rule I've ever known." And I ended my relationship with my boyfriend because I couldn't lie to myself. Because I loved you. 

But you had lied to me, and I would learn this. And my next trip to Rome would be after my world collapsed. 

You came to me, traveling on a passport that was not yours. And you told me your other secret: you were married. And hearing this, my knees buckled and I fell to the floor. And then I retreated to my room, knowing it was over. And you said, "Wait for me. Please. It isn't real. It's a business arrangement. I'll make this right."  And I didn't understand how a marriage could be a business arrangement, because I wanted nothing more than to be married to you. And then you missed your flight, because I think you were worried about what would happen if you left me in that state. And so we drove my Nissan Micra to Rome, and you booked another flight, then ate in a restaurant by the forum, and you took a photo. In it, you are exuberant with relief, and I am in hell.  

My next visit to Rome was in the months after you had vanished. Mom and me in the Sistine Chapel and Saint Peter's. And me, so depressed, I almost stepped into the sea. 

There were other trips, I'm sure. Other visits with Eve and Tim, with my brother and his wife. But the trip I remember next was the time I came to find a lawyer. Someone who could help protect me against your clandestine brothers. Because I was fighting to free you, and I worried what they would do to me. I visited two different lawyers. The first was in a fancy office near Piazza de Popolo. They said they weren’t right for that sort of thing. The second lawyer recognized the threat and had me break apart my phone.  And I gave him my records for his safe, and we set up a process: if something happened to me, he would pass my evidence to the police and prosecutors. They would know who to charge. 

Then I was here with dad. The days after your men carried a lie about me to the US Embassy in Rome. And my contract was cancelled in the minutes before I was scheduled to get dad from the airport. And we took our holiday anyways. And I was so distracted, I couldn't focus. Or remember much. And dad had his cell phone taken from his pocket on the Metro, and that was its own emergency.

My next time in Rome was months later - in the days after your lie made its way to my employer, and they wanted it to go away. Wanted me to go away. And after months of "deliberations", they smiled sweetly and said, “everyone has such good things to say about you,” and I didn’t smile back while I said, “that’s because I’m a damned good analyst.” And in order to keep my job, they had a paper for me to sign – a lie that made me claim responsibility for the things your men had done. And I refused to sign on to it. I already had a trip planned for my sister and nieces here in Italy, so I followed through anyway. And the day I got on the plane was the I lost my career, my ability to work in the field where I was an expert. And while I walked through the forum with my nieces, I felt the weight of this. And this time, I had not been able to escape rape. So, I buried the unbearable truths of what had happened. And kept trying to survive. 

I love this city, but it haunts me. You are here. It is all here with me. 

And my story is so enormous to me. It is my life. Your love and your betrayal changed everything. And amidst these ancient ruins, I feel the jutting outlines of my own wreckage.  

 

 

 

The maximum amount of contact for our bodies

I dreamed about you again. 

I'm not sure what it means. Maybe just that you're always there in my subconscious, every bit as much a participant as my own soul. 

The image of the dream was actually a memory: you were scheduled to fly out of Naples, and you said that you thought you'd never see me again. And it was unbearable. I was in your quarters of the BOQ. I said that I was there to help, but I couldn't stop crying. Just unbearable sobbing, and I couldn't stop. 

And you seemed so surprised and so desperate. I think you really didn't let yourself believe how much I really deeply loved you. So you asked me to lie on the bed, and then you lay directly on top of me, your feet tucked around my feet, your arms around my arms, and you looked into my face and said, "There. The maximum amount of contact for our bodies." 

And it was so immensely comforting. To have you cover me like that. 

In my dream, I had this strange realization that closed the loop somehow. That all of the noise I made, the way I fought to keep your integrity and your soul...that was me covering you. 

I don't know how to describe it now, but the feeling was correct. 

While I was doing those things, I didn't really expect to be able to keep you. The second I started being noisy and disruptive, the moment I refused to pretend that I was blind and deaf to everything they had done...that was the moment I was going to be barred from ever being with you. 

But I also remember the urgency I felt: that I was fighting for your soul. And your soul was more important than anything. More important than my life. More important even than being able to keep you. 

Here I am, fifteen years on, and your soul still matters to me. And I wonder if I covered you enough. 

Processing the nightmare

 I've started to be able to look back and process and understand things in a way I couldn't before. 

Part of this is years of trauma therapy - which has helped me understand how my own previous experiences and paradigms influenced how I received the systematic devaluation, destabilization, privacy invasion, and abuse of a covert intelligence agency; and to integrate those experiences into a cohesive whole.  I've also been able to stop blaming myself for what happened, and to start to hold compassion for the person I was - the constant terror and uncertainty I experienced, the love and the need to protect. 

Another part is time. I needed to get enough distance from those events, enough sense of myself, enough maturing and emotional growth to be able to handle the magnitude of what had happened without having it destroy me. 

A third part is understanding. This was a matter of experience - of being able to observe and know how people and organizations function, of being able to do research (insofar as anyone outside of clandestine organizations can peer into them), of coming to an understanding of the tactics and procedures, and the mind-numbing bureaucracy. Like any other bureaucracy, this one functions in an impersonal, process driven way that tamps down individual agency and expression, and demands adherence to institutional culture and rules at the cost of one's soul. But, unlike other organizations which may have dishonest players within the instiution, clandestine groups have dishonesty as its backbone. Its operators are trained to view relationships transactionally, to detach and distance themselves, to lie and create whatever manipulation is expedient for the circumstance. 

Over this past weekend, on a flight, I watched the first three episodes of the television series, "The Agency" with Michael Fassbender. I found it both deeply troubling and a profound relief. 

For years, my mental map of the organization that had harmed me was a nebulous shadow - its outlines defined by what I'd observed, documented, and understood from their treatment of me and you. It was always difficult to know how much of what happened to us - and what they did to me - was the result of your choice, and how much was an institutional decision. 

Seeing the depiction of covert operations on the screen was a validation of my personal records. It also helped fill in the blanks for me in a way I've never been able to achieve before now. 

In the days since I've watched that, so many feelings have risen to the surface - memories of you and me. And us. The things you told me, the fear you lived inside. And my own fear. God, I was terrified. For years. And even now, as I look back over the past decade of living in the Netherlands, I marvel at my own boldness - and am hardly surprised that I've continued to live in a baseline of fear in all that time. 

I wish I had lived a different life. I wish they hadn't attacked me. I wish you had been kinder. More ethical. I wish you had defended me against them. I wish you had chosen me, and left that life behind. 

But I also understand that there was no way they would have let me be with you. Even if I hadn't made such an almighty stink. The problem was never me. It was your disobedience. 

But I certainly was problematic for them, wasn't I? I was a physicist, an analyst, a professional. I cared deeply about the mission. And I loved you truly and profoundly. And I needed to protect you. I saw what they were doing. And I was never supposed to see. I filed complaints with MIVD, with the Dutch Ministry of Defense, and I talked to an Dutch Inspector General. I reported to NCIS and my chain of command. I put my records with a human righs lawyer, and filed a criminal complaint in the Italian court. And, afterwards, when they tried to discredit me, I refused to step into the "Crazy Bitch Box." 

And I continue to remember.

I know that there is nothing I can ever do to see you again. There is no god I can appease. There is no tribunal where I can receive justice or recompense for the suffering. I can never recover what they took from me.

But I can retain my evidence and my story. I never traded my soul or my birthright for that fucking mess of pottage. I kept a firm grip on it all.

And I pray for you. Not every day - but when I can. When the need for you still rushes up into me, and fills me with sadness. And every time I've ever walked into a church, I've always lit a candle for you. 

I love you, my darling. I always will. 

Changing course

 It's been a long time since I felt that I was in the right place, doing what I felt I should be doing. 

The last time I felt this way was when I was working in Africa. Yes, I was tremendously upset and depressed - yes, I missed Sjors every day. But I knew that what I was doing was on the right track. As if everything in my soul aligned to say, "this is important. This is correct". 

The years since have been so wrong. I've never felt right about where I was, or what I was doing. Thrashing around, hunting for the purpose and truth that would make it right again. And work in trauma therapy has taught me to accept what is, not to live in what should have been. But there is no joy in this acceptance. Only a sort of dullness and rot in the world as I stand helplessly by and watch the mundane horrors we bring - with no power to change them. 

And perhaps that's why publishing a book has been so unsatisfying. I thought that having my voice back would give me that sense of purpose again. But it hasn't. Where I was once expansive, feeling as though I could bring my ideas and data into the world, there is no hope. I am retracted and different now. And although I hoped to change the world with what I thought and wrote in the same way that I was changing things in Africa, the small corner of the world that reads my words feels only entertainment. 

This was no clearer to me than when it came to the adaptation - and the soul of what I'd written had been completely discarded. As if they hadn't even noticed it. And I realize that I can't be seen in this way. I can't write for entertainment. That was never what I wanted. That was never my purpose. 

I feel sick about it. And all I can do is pray that nobody pays for the garbage. That my work is not taken forever. 

Last night I dreamed that I was on a naval base. Not any base I'd been on - but a place in "Yoruba" - which is not an actual city, but refers to the people in West Africa. And I realized that I'm spilling out my life in purposeless activities, hoping that meaning will find its way back to me. No longer expansive, I'm looking to satisfy my own mind and my own comfort, as if this will bring me peace. It will not bring me peace. And this frittering away of time, my efforts to write what is wanted, not what is driven from my soul, will only end in misery. 

I must change direction. Go back to the things that mattered. My soul is not for sale. 

in the center

There's a crystalline pain in the center of my chest. Sharp and thin and hard. A high shrieking note that never tires, never takes a breath.

It's been there for decades. Even before I met you. When there was a tear in the universe, and I struggled to make sense of the distortion. 

And somehow, because of you, that rending grew, and hardened in me - so that when I touch it now, it pulls me in, collapsing my dimensions into that scream, so that I'm frozen in a universe of unbearable anguish.  

Last night, I dreamed of you again. And, in my dream, you were kind. And you remembered. 

And, in that moment, and for that time, the pain eased. 

I dreamed about you again. It woke me up. 

This time, your sister had invited me to an event and I wasn't sure I should come. I didn't know if you would be there, and I didn't want you to see me. I was so ashamed of myself. 

But my sister and brother told me, "you should," and then they drove me. We had trouble with maps and traffic and by the time we arrived, the event was over, and everyone was standing to leave. I saw you in the crowd and, before I could turn, you had seen me too. And I didn't want to be the person who ran away so I stood there, frozen to the spot. I thought you would scream at me again. 

But you didn't. And then Arnoud was there too, and he took us into a room to try and talk. 

But I, as always, lost my words. I am speechless when these feelings overwhelm me, unable to explain or defend or advocate for myself. I somehow know that I could fight through the overwhelm and dissociation and make myself talk - but then the words would be some hollow representation of my true self: as if my body were merely a puppet saying what I wanted to say, but unable to give them life. And I don't want to be that person again. If I speak to you, I only want to do it with my true self, and that part is too hidden when I am terrified of you.

You gave me a bag - and in it were the shoulder shields of your uniform, and you told me that they were for me. 

"I'm so proud of you," you said. "I've seen everything you've done. I've been so proud." 

And all I could do was cry. Speechless and frozen. 

So Arnoud talked for me. He described everything you'd done. He talked about how it has altered my life, how I have suffered. He gave words to the things I couldn't tell you myself. 

"With everything you've done to her, can you see why she wouldn't have known how you feel?" he asked. 

And you put your hands around my hands and tenderly pulled me in close and hugged me. 

"I love you," you said. "I've never stopped. I've always loved you." 

I don't know if that is true. Are these dreams merely a manifestation of my need? What I would need from you? For you to understand what it has meant to lose you? For you to see me? For you to love me still? 

I couldn't bear to have you see me as I am. I am too ashamed. But this does not stop the constant pull of my thoughts and mind and soul back to you - even when I dream. 

You can never go home

 I went to graduate school in Medford, MA, when I was 22 years old. I came from such a sheltered world - and I'd never lived away from family and friends. Then, suddenly, I was 4,000 miles away from everyone I knew. 

I lived in a graduate house just off campus - a little 7-by-11 foot room. It was strange and isolating and lonely. But I was excited to be on my very first adventure: living in a very different city, prepared to study physics and to train to be a fully-fledged physicist. I was very nervous and excited. 

The first person I met on campus was a man named Roger Tobin. I remember him as tall and lean - in his forties. He had a strange rat-like way of holding his hands together, wrists limp.  He'd volunteered to be my graduate advisor. However, I soon learned that this was hardly a benevolent act. 

In his office that first day, he said to me - "I don't think you belong here."

He then went on to explain how he had objected to my being admitted to the program. 

I was shocked, of course, but the literary part of my brain who read the classics thought, Ah, perhaps this is a challenge. Perhaps I am meant to demonstrate my resolve and dedication. Perhaps this is meant to push me.

As it turned out, there was nothing altruistic in this. Instead, he did his best to make my life a living hell. I understand now that the persistent humiliation he subjected me to - the exams I was forced to take (which my colleagues were not) - was actually bullying. But I had zero internal defenses against such treatment. I was naive and credulous and hopeful and I couldn't imagine a world where someone would be cruel for the sake of cruelty. Instead, I metabolized and internalized the treatment - believing that I was somehow deserving of it. That I was inadequate and stupid and foolish for wanting to understand and study physics. 

Now, in my forties, I can better understand the particular egregiousness of his actions. Whenever I meet kids in their twenties, of course I can spot the weaknesses and tenderness. It's completely obvious, even with the ones who try to pretend to be tough and world-wise. But I would never dream of using this against them. It inspires compassion in me, a desire to nurture. But Tobin's inclination was to torture. 

I became increasingly desperate and miserable, but I refused to surrender. 

Then, a few months in to my studies, the truth of my family spilled out in the most terrible way. The suicide attempts were the worst - and the dawning understanding of everything they had suffered. 

I understand now how the grief overwhelmed me. It was a shifting - an understanding that the family I knew and loved was not the same family that had always existed. The cruel and terrible dynamics and the broken boundaries, the violated trust, and the impossible suffering of the children I loved was more than I could bear. I felt it with me all the time. And there was the terror of a successful suicide attempt. It was the constant threat. 

I remember feeling like this reality was always before my face - a relentless hideous truth that I could never escape. There was no relief. Those years were the most anguished time of my life. 

By the time I returned to Utah, everything was different. My family was never "whole" again.  Even the home I returned to was not the same home. My parents sold the house where I was raised. I never went back. 

I've started to understand how this sense of exile has defined me. It's everywhere in my writings:  this peculiar pain of never being able to return home. 

It is an ancient pain, of course. The first agony described in the bible: the exile from Eden. An angel with a flaming sword guarding the gate. Home so close, but so inaccessible. 

And now Arnoud identifies a new idea. What was it when I met Sjors? What was that first undeniable feeling? Recognition. For some reason I will never understand, he was home for me. I've never felt so whole as I did in his arms, or when he stretched across me, shoulders to toes, and looked into me with that bright blue gaze and said, "there! The maximum amount of contact for our bodies." 

And so it was that the pain of losing him - of the hidden truth being different than it seemed, of returning to the Netherlands, but never being able to see him, to touch him, to be near to him, is resonant with that old familiar ache. I am here, but I can never go home.