London

I write because I must. The thoughts tangle up in me and must stroll to stretch their legs. The thoughts are, as always and without reprieve, for you. When I write, I let myself believe you are my friend and are interested in them. I know that you wish that I did not exist for you - that I had never existed. But you cared once, and I write to that person, even if he is dead.  Maybe he is locked up in some corner of your mind and he likes to see my name and hear my voice.

I sometimes share bits of our correspondence with Eve and Christine because they've both met you. They tell me, “He existed. He loved you once. He is gone. He is dead, but he loved you once very much.” They both have such incredible empathy for you. They say such kind things about you still, and that comforts me. I care that you are treated well - even in memory - because you have been through so much, and I don’t want hatred towards to you for the choices you’ve made.  I fight enough dark thoughts of my own, I don’t have it in me to fight their anger as well.

I was in London this week; a hotel in Trafalgar square just across from the National Gallery and the church of St. Martin in the Fields. More than a decade ago, I spent three months in London and saw (and fell in love with) Da Vinci’s Madonna of the Rocks, and ate in the church’s “Café  in the crypt”. This Thursday, I ran in the misting rain, saluted Lord Nelson, jogged past the theaters, and fantasized about the day when I will come back and sit in the audience.  My childhood friend Stacey came to meet us at the hotel. Stacey moved to the UK several months ago so that she could be with Daniel, the Scotsman who took her heart. She had been an actress in New York for fifteen years, taking work as a salesperson and nanny, and working in off-off-Broadway roles. Daniel is a British actor and they eek out an existence together, learning one another, and loving every minute. We met for drinks and she stayed the night with me so we could catch up.

We sat together with Jim in the swanky hotel bar, sipping cocktails and prepping for the meetings the next morning. Jim is my business partner, not my lover. It might be convenient if I was attracted to him. We have common vision, common interests and a shared drive for work. I’ve traveled to the UK five times since August to work with him. We work from early morning until well past midnight, and he reaches inside my brain and fiddles with the gears, finding ways to shift every time it gets fatigued or distracted or dark. Jim’s an impressive man: with years of experience managing human tragedies for the UN. He was responsible for the Rwandan refugee camp during the 1994 genocide and was made a member of the British Order for this work. He would fly over the rivers leading into Goma every morning, counting bodies for the tally so that the UN would finally say “genocide” and intervene. When cholera broke out in the camp, killing 60,000 people in ten days, he shipped in lye to line the graves and bottled water to stop the spread, and bulldozed the contaminated bodies into pits. He had to fight the Hutu disinformation campaign that came over short-wave radio into the camp: they told the refugees that the ration wrist-bands would leave a secret tattoo to track them for life. In response, Jim and his workers wore dozens of the wristbands up their own arms as they worked.

Jim was shot in Bosnia as he ran the refugee camp there. He negotiated through border crossings and was one time drawn into a trap as he negotiated to move food through a contested territory. He was trapped for a day in a cement building with several Serbian men who cooked rats in a pot as they waited for the firefight to stop. Two of the men had been neighbors before the conflict. When the ethnic cleansing began, one man killed the wife and children of the other man. Now, they seemed to be friends and allies. "It is my fault," explained the man with the murdered family. "I should not have married a Croat."

Jim told me this story when I asked him how your thinking could be twisted and converted by the people you work for, turning you into their tool.

He is such a private person, nobody would ever guess that this is his past. It’s taken me months to elicit this information from Jim as we’ve worked together. In return, he walks with me through the Suffolk farmland or along the seaside after I’ve received a detached or cold message from you. He doesn’t ask questions and he distracts me with our current project, directing my pain into productivity.

I admire and respect him, but we’re platonic as brother and sister when I stay at his country home and work late in the night. It’s good for me that way because I can offer brain, but nothing of my heart. The heart is not mine to give. The mind is all he asks, though, and he gives me his mind in return. We will be business partners for decades. We will change the world. He encourages me to protect myself. His tradecraft is learned from playing politics at the highest levels of government. He eats organizations like yours for breakfast. He has advised me on prosecuting your bastard organization, and he will stand beside me as I eviscerate Mac on a global stage.
 
Jim and I met with three of the top law London firms on Thursday. Three firms with very British names. I wore a skintight black dress with heels and the necklace you gave me. By itself the necklace is bittersweet, so I add a heart-shaped quartz stone that was a gift from Stacey years ago. It seems to neutralize the sadness.

After it was over, we had dinner that night with Nick and Fiona in their London home. I’ve fallen in love with Nick and Fiona and their two semi-adult children. Nick is a barrister who cooks me bacon and eggs for breakfast and offers me wine and legal counsel, and Fiona executes the most hilarious running commentary about British politics and the British social scene. If I was ten years younger, I would marry their 18-year-old son, Alex, simply so I could integrate into their fantastic dynamic and enjoy them all the time. It has been such a surprise for me that I can be a part of other families, out of pleasure and not obligation. People have extended families and in-laws. I will never have these things, but I have friends all over the globe who open their homes to me because they are good and I am good, and we seek one another out.

I have a sore throat and fever today. I wish that I did not. I travel to Africa again soon and I hate being sick when I travel. I need to be well so that I can watch for signs of malaria. After this last visit to Senegal, I’ve learned that I can't take the chemical prophylaxis (the side-effects were dangerous), so I have to wait until I’m infected with the damned parasite before I act. I can't know to do this if I already have chills and a fever. It feels pretty bad today - but I remember that you once told me that the worst sickness in the world is the one you're currently experiencing. This makes me laugh now as I feel sorry for myself.

I have sympathy for you, Sjors. I don't understand your decisions, but I don't think you're any happier than I am. Like me, you throw yourself into your work to compensate for the pieces that are missing. Does this give you relief as it gives me? This work consumes me and gives me a future again. I intend to use my energies and the leverage I will gain with my current work to fix things: to pressure companies and governments to behave ethically. Of course, I haven't had success yet! Consider that I haven't had any luck in getting your government to behave ethically - but they haven't felt the pain yet so I still have time. I think you are like me: constantly driving with work and brain so you won't have attention to feel the loss.

I have several questions lingering from past messages to you. I asked you if you ever cheated on me and you did not answer this. I ask you again. I also ask you again to meet with me. You know my reasons for asking this; true friendship requires honesty and commitment. So, I suppose my question remains from my last message to you: will you be my friend? I am your friend and let you into my life. You are welcome. But, in spite of all the rules and restrictions you live under, I want you to be my friend as well. I want you to let me into your life and to be honest with me, whether the picture is good or bad. It goes against all your training, and everything they wish you to do. But I think you should give them the finger and do it anyway.

I've been reading Le Carre's books recently. He is one of my favorite authors and I pace myself with his writings (like good bottles of wine). I particularly like the Smiley series. I just finished "Smiley's People" and I've started reading, "Call for the Dead" about George's recruitment and initial years in the British Secret Service. A passage struck me with particular poignancy: "His emotions in performing this work were mixed and irreconcilable. It intrigued him to evaluate, from a detached position, what he described as "the agent potential of a human being", to devise miniscule tests of character and behavior which could inform him of the qualities of a candidate.  This part of him was bloodless and inhuman. Smiley, in this role, was the international mercenary of his trade: amoral and without motive beyond that of personal gratification. Conversely, it saddened him to witness in himself the gradual death of natural pleasure. Always withdrawn, he now found himself shrinking from the temptations of friendship and human loyalty. He guarded himself warily from spontaneous reaction. By the strength of his intellect, he forced himself to observe humanity with clinical objectivity and because he was neither immortal nor infallible, he hated and feared the falseness of his life."

I wonder, my friend, if this is what you hate and fear. You are, by nature, an intellectual man. Empathy comes to you as a secondary effect after you have been able to logic your way through another person's perspective. But I like the spontaneous Sjors, and it will be sad if you guard yourself warily from spontaneous reaction. They should let you be more than this. It is a false choice they offer you. Do you sense this?