Suspicion and Fatigue

It was dark today. There was a storm cloud over Pozzuoli and the surf pounded up against the boulders that line the seafront on Via Napoli. I ran to the pier at Bagnoli. I've run this route hundreds of times and it is comfortingly familiar now. There is comfort in all elements of the landscape: the vistas of brightly pattered buildings crowding the seafront; the piles of trash and the graffiti train that howls through the tightly clustered apartments, and the stray cats that wend their way through the black rocks. All of this will be missed by me when I leave Italy. I run through a cluster of fat-bottomed school-boys in sweatpants, and past a clump of old men. One bearded old man starts to sing to me as I dodge past him: "Amore!! Solo..." I don't hear the rest of his words.

I can run faster now than I used to. When I was corresponding with Mac and his brethren, I didn't know if they would come after me so I started to run harder, lift more weights, and train "like special forces train". Or, at least, delude myself that this was what I was doing. I lived in a constant state of alertness, wondering if I was actually in physical danger, but determined that I would get myself out of it if I needed to. In retrospect, it isn't surprising that they didn't come after me after all. It is much better (from their perspective) to wait and see what I would do and to try to paint me as "crazy" when I did act.

I could hurt them much more than I've done - but I've been unwilling to break my own ethical boundaries. I don't feel the need to protect Sjors anymore because his behavior has been so appalling, but I don't feel the need to actively harm him and I would have to do that if I wanted to make them suffer. I was disgusted by his behavior when the organization demanded his show of allegiance against me and it sometimes still hurts terribly. But I am primarily sorry for him. I am sorry that he has lost the best and most beautiful part of his soul to them. I am sorry that he destroyed it because it was inconvenient. In the end, he chose them.

I still miss him more than I can mention. Life is clockwork for me. It will always be clockwork, I'm afraid. But he chose them and there is nothing I can do to take back the soul I gave to him. When I still ache for him, I remind myself this. He chose to stay in a sham marriage. He chose to stay with an organization that exploited him and which demanded that he surrender me. He may be the match of my soul, he may own my soul, but he chose them.

 

In December, when I was in Gabon, he became my facebook friend. I wondered what this meant. Wondered why. After all this time. What did he want? I waited to see what he would do next. But he did nothing. There was no action to actually become a friend. After a while, it seemed so passive and one-sided, I decided he wasn't really my friend in any sense and I removed him. Now I note that Isa has re-posted her facebook page (she took it down when I said something about this in an e-mail account that the organization was monitoring). She has linked it to his. I used to feel compassion and empathy for her but I began to feel disgust when I saw her terrible behavior and the toll it took on him. Now, I just feel disgust and pity for them both.  I feel angry at them for choosing something that was wrong simply because the "right" thing required courage and action.

I feel so tired these days. I slept for a dozen hours last night, but I am still so tired. I worry that the darkness will close in again. I worry that my attempts to live a normal life will be overtaken by the pain I still feel. By the longing for things I cannot have. I catch these little glimmers of hope, but they are so easily snuffed out when I start to remember the truth which is constantly clamoring at the edge of my subconscious.

It seems so strange to me that I have other Dutchmen in my life. In a way, these other men have provided a sort of salvation for me. They gave me the hope and the beauty that I needed. I even had a Dutch officer supporting the program I care most about: John. With me in Senegal. God, he was really helpful. And then, in the past year, there's Patrick and Jan and Roger and Richard. Every one of them so incredibly what I needed: clarity on the programs I was running, companionship, connection. Together, they were men who helped bring me back to life (although they do not know this). I feel badly that I've always wondered about them: what do they know? What do they want? How strange that I should fight one aspect of the organism and draw another part close to me.