ࡱ>    !"#$%&'()*+,-./0123456789:;<=>?@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[\]^_`abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz{|}~Root EntryZ O2th1@ CONTENTS CompObjVSPELLING  !"#$d a table-mat, using both knife and fork. And stare at a blank wall. My plate in one hand, fork in the other, was causing no end of distress. You ll make a mess on the couch. But it was an old worn-out couch, a hand-me-down your father didn t want. I had to see the news, as there had been a skirmish in the Persian Gulf. However, the Gulf and global politics seemed irrelevant now. We had been in love for a few weeks. We d never kissed - on the lips. But I anticipated those sensual moments of goodbye, the mo      !"#$%&'()*+,-./0123456789:;<=>?@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[\]^_`abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz{|}~      !"#$%&'()*+,-./0123456789:;<=>?@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[\]^_`abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz{|}~CHNKWKS FTEXTTEXTFDPPFDPPFDPPFDPPFDPPFDPPFDPPFDPPFDPPFDPPFDPPFDPPFDPPFDPPFDPPFDPPFDPPFDPPFDPP FDPPFDPP FDPPFDPP FDPPFDPP FDPPFDPP FDPPFDPPFDPPFDPPFDPPFDPPFDPPFDPPFDPPant. I had tOBSERVING LOVE I Anything can happen at any time. Yet, life normally hums along slowly, even when love and fortune; and death and disaster are at stake. The moments which we remember afterwards - either the worst pain or purest joy - these are brief instances, interspersed by lengthy pauses of waiting, wanting, hoping, and biding the seconds of our existence. But, each seemingly insignificant instant, and every arbitrary gesture, or tone of voice, should be nourished and noted; for we never truly observe everything in our environment. Every little detail that passes us by, may be a vital clue that could enrich our lives with understanding. But what good is understanding if we cannot act on it? For, if we did act with real intent, with genuine curiosity - if indeed we were not only truly alert to our surroundings, but aware enough to take heed of what the details are telling us, and therefore have the gumption to act with intent, we could avert most of the disaster that plagues our ordinary lives. The key to this process of awareness, begins with careful observation. Yet, careful observation only becomes important to us, when the imperative truth slips beyond our grasp, without us noticing, until its almost too late. Observation and critical detailed truth, is our only shield against the rampant march of those that have no sense of ethics, against those that would use us for what they can, even under the guise of love, then dispose of us, as if we were commodities. II A brown-eyed girl is a delicate thing. Yet this pretty girl, was yelling at me uncontrollably. It was difficult to understand the protest. I had merely wanted to eat my dinner in front of the T.V. Her quivering pierced lip had insisted that supper had to be eaten at a table, with a tray anst delicate lips on my cheek. If I could just be kissed goodbye on the lips for once. But now, this screaming imp in front of me, was giving an altogether different type of goodbye signal. Love? Without a real kiss? Milan Kundera tells us that spending the night sleeping next to a girl is love. Sex is indifferent to this. We had slept together almost every night for many weeks now. So it was love then. And to end like this?  please stop yelling I say in what I hope is a calming tone. Why is it so important to eat at the table? I can remember the same argument in my family when, as a child, television first appeared in our lives during the seventies. My father had won the debate and we were all finally allowed to eat in front of the T.V. The family dinner ritual had finally been abolished, much to my traditional mother s dismay. It had been a hard won battle for liberty over domestic tyranny.  please don t shout , I ask. I look down at her tirade. I briefly consider giving in, and eating at the table, sulkily like a punished child. But freedom is a daily struggle that never rests, and the sooner we give in to tyranny, the harder it is to deal with later. So I take my plate and sit on the old buckled couch, observing the spectacle of the no-fly zone in Iraq. It was an uneasy  ceasefire with only a few missiles being fired, and it had been going on for quite some time. What end could come to this uneasy domination? Surely something had to give: A catalyst to either ignite the conflict further, or bring peace, or both. The Gulf couldn t go on like this forever, especially given the vast power difference between the sides. During the original Iraqi invasion of Kuwait which had sparked the conflict, the Americans had captured half a million Iraqi soldiers in the desert, then sent them home. So now what do you do?  Why are you fighting with me over something as trivial as where I eat my food? I say, trying to negotiate her ever increasing volume, and increasing pitch. But of course such a logical question only incited further ranting about  civilized behavior and amplified the volume even more than before. So eventually I stand up, my dinner cold and spoiled now, and I join in the fracas.  will you please stop screaming at me over & ! I consider just turning and leaving. Her trivial dinner rule was one thing, but the way in which I was being ordered to obey it, was more militant than romantic. I did admire the strength of her personality, but this sudden need to control my eating habits had come from nowhere. It had not been an issue when her house was empty, before the arrival of her Father s hand-me-downs. The fear, the fierce eyes. The sadness. Maybe just the animation of life. Perhaps the intoxication of her smell. Do I care? Do I care enough? Can I just walk away? She had already broken a wooden spoon on me while chasing me around the house and beating me with it repeatedly. I had been singing a song from the Crash Test Dummies, which went  hold me down and spank me, use a wooden spoon, but be next to me. After that she had decided it was better to beat me with the plastic egg-lifter as it was less likely to break on me. She had such anger in her, and the sting of the wooden spoon and now the spatula hardly bothered me much. She got such a thrill out of beating me, that I had laughed it off. But now the attack had taken a nastier, more sinister tone. From her considerable height disadvantage, she stands on her toes, puts her nose, almost touching mine, and shouts:  That wasn t screaming - THIS IS SCREAMING!! with wild bulging angry eyes. I instantly recall a crazed drama student who had screamed at me with a similar look on her face. She had left two long bleeding nail-scrapes down the side of my face, just millimetres from my eye. This is not on. I close my eyes slowly. slap. She is shocked into silence. It seemed as though it was the first time anyone had dared to stop her tirade. Had no-one ever taught her the boundaries of personal physical space? Now I felt like running for the hills as I fumbled with the awkward door handle. I really don t want this. She is sitting on the stairs now, her head in her hands. And the lavish whip of words that stung me with their sadness, crossed the gulf between us, and melted any cracks inside my heart forever as they coiled around my skin. She softly says:  please don t go&  III Old people are the most sacred people of all. They are treasure troves of words and imagery: living time machines to the past. The measure of a society is in its treatment of the elderly, for they preserve our ethic, our values. These values, whatever they may be, serve us in the long term. The elderly very often are our most direct contact with the first-hand experience behind these values. Perhaps Milan Kundera is right about love being about sleeping next to a girl. But I think I fell in love with her, when I saw her affection for her grandparents. Their house had that eternal fifties aura to it. The echoes of the past rang through the hallway like unseen ghosts. She had grown up here as a child. My wife was talking to her grandmother who was bed-ridden, and I was treated to world war two stories from her grandfather, Charles: Hunting Nazi U-boats while negotiating waves as big as mountains in the North Sea. Charles own father was an immigrant from Germany before the war, but would tell me no more about that. There had been  terrible conflict in his family. At that time many families in South Africa had internal conflicts, as the echoes of the Boer War, and The Great World War repeated themselves through the generations. My family had similar issues at that time. Charles had joined up to fight Hitler at age sixteen, two years younger than he should have been. His uncle had signed for him. I was then introduced to her grandmother. Thin and frail, she was only half-coherent. Sometimes clinging and friendly. It seemed sad that she needed daily care from a live-in nurse. She had wild and excited eyes, and at times became very happy, but over-aged and gaunt for someone hardly seventy. She reminded me of my great grandmother who had lived well into her nineties. I had been contemplating starting a masters degree in Psychology, specialising in neuroscience, and I noticed that the old girl did not have the mindset of most old people. Not old and doddering at all. Similar, it seemed, to someone who had taken too many drugs. I wonder what her prescription was? My own late grandmother had suffered terribly as she had been given contra-indicated medicines by various doctors. I pondered to myself the state of neurotransmitters in her brain. Her Dopamine and Serotonin levels must be abnormal. She had wide staring eyes. It was interesting that her particular brand of dementia was more animated and extroverted than any I could recall from life or from text books. Wildly alive, confused, switching between coherent comments that were quite slurred, and incomprehensible sounds. The old man is tired so we don t stay too long.  No matter what happens says Charles to me, as we leave with the most earnest of expressions,  promise me you will do your best to look after my granddaughter. He says this in a calm and protective tone. I had the feeling that I could trust him instantly.  Yes. I will, and you look after the old girl. I say. And immediately I can see the look of helplessness in his eyes. How he had tried everything. How her illness did not seem natural at all. And although I regretted that last remark a bit, as he clearly had looked after her his whole life; when I looked into his eyes, I saw the depth of care and feeling he had for her. And I saw the helpless hurt at observing her degeneration.  Thank-you for visiting them with me - I m sure its boring for you.  I d visit them anytime. They are really friendly people.  Someone is trying to murder them.  What? What makes you say that?  It s the nurse. She has put her photograph where mine was on the bookshelf. IV Its a coincidence that both our families were originally from the Durban area, 1000km or so from where we met and lived in Grahamstown: Xhosa territory, Mandela s country. So it was an odd feeling, returning to the suburb of my Godfather. We had left the Durban area when I was a child. Kwazulu-Natal, the land of Shaka Zulu. We snuck into her Father s house one night in Durban. This ended up with me receiving the most peculiar of dressing downs, in harsh, hushed tones from her. It seemed that no matter how lightly I walked, I was hissed at for stamping loudly. I would wake her father up she said. Her hissing was twice as loud as my walking, that s for sure. I had been warned of her father by her friends, and more than once, I was told  he is the worst person in the world , by all her oldest friends. So he turned out to be a friendly and unusual ally at pizza supper the next night. We had been talking about theft and ethics, and she had maintained that while it was wrong to steal from friends, it was fine to steal from large corporations. She had snapped at me to  stop my bleating when I had pointed out that civilized society was built on the notion of promise-keeping. I had felt quite downtrodden by her comment, her demeanour was cutting and harsh. But I did, in a sense, get rescued, when her father started telling everyone he possibly could to  stop bleating. She had laughed at this and it became the in-joke of the evening. At least she can laugh at her own mean attitude, I thought to myself. Her sniping had been easily countered with jest by her father. He s not such a bad guy. It must have been hard for him to be an only parent. Her mother had apparently walked out on them when she was just two years old, and never returned. Don t ever mention my mother to him.  Just don t bring us any lamb her Father told the waitress,  there s been a lot of bleating going on. The bemused waitress did not understand the jest at all. I thought I understood the joke too, at the time. She just wanted to be teased a little, I shouldn t be so serious all the time. Now that I look back at this conversation, perhaps I should have been a lot more serious. V The first time we met she was a gorgeous raven-haired first year student with cute Bridget Jones puppy fat, sun-tanning unashamedly next to me in her bra and shorts at the house of an old friend, a Palaeontologist. She was upset and felt persecuted by the girls at the residence. She had dreamt the walls were dripping blood, and been ostracized for this. But, then she brightened  All I want to do is go to London. London is the best. At that, I had shrugged my unemployed and disappointed shoulders in defeat, and bumped in to her again in Cape Town, four years later. I had been visiting a girlfriend who I had split up with because she had tried to get me involved in smuggling money out of South Africa into Sweden. This girl had been the common friend that we shared and we had gone out together with some other old Grahamstown friends now living in Cape Town. A random meeting up of old friends, it seemed. She had grown up since London. She now had on boots that raised her some six inches or more off the ground. She used my cell-phone to speak to her mother for the first time in her adult life. We went to visit her mother s house. It had a very pretty garden, and, literally dozens of cats. Three of us came with her as back-up: myself, as well as two girls from her university. It was a relaxed, unremarkable meeting. As she is saying goodbye I notice oriental symbols tattooed on her neck. What do they mean? Come visit me in Grahamstown, and find out. A few months later, I move back to Grahamstown, with an inclination to do a masters degree in criminal investigative psychology. Something I feel is very necessary in post-apartheid South Africa. By now she is a D.J. on campus radio, and I am invited to visit her radio show. She is having her nipple pierced live on air. I do my best to ignore the sight of the needle piercing through her nipple, and the spurt of blood. I can only wonder about this unbelievable spectacle. How can someone so refreshingly confident and mostly fun to be with, be so numb to pain? She looks at me with a massive smile on her face, between grimaces, and the occasional  ow! followed by a big smile. But afterwards I sense through this, such a longing need in her for love. Such a perfect smile. She would later tell me  I would have pierced my clitoris if I had not met you. on many, many occasions. I had arrived just in the nick of time. A girl I went out with some ten years earlier had more scars on her body than I could count. Some of them longer than your own hand. Suicide attempts or self-mutilation, who could be totally sure? Borderline personality disorder is the textbook categorisation. Victim of child abuse at a very young age. She was a sweet and friendly girl, the one with the shaven head and scars. So a live nipple-piercing was somehow refreshingly innocent. It was more of an open and self-aware statement, than a subconscious psychotic desire. As our friendship evolved, we circumnavigated the country several times over a few months, and covered over 40 000 km in the first year, visiting every member of her family on the continent; and after witnessing the lows of live nipple-piercing, and sharing a tent where she threatened to hit me on the head with a condensed milk can, if I so much as touched her, we eventually bumped our lips against each other. The first bump may have been an accident but the second and third ones were less so. No one ever did claim first move. It was ironic that she had been walking around provocatively in front of me without clothes, at almost every opportunity for months, and yet finally, just the possibility of a real tender kiss had made her as shy as a virgin. A year or so after those first kisses, with my name in her hand, and her father s permission in mine, we found a castle and a beach and a priest, and we were wed. Her grandparents were too old to come to the wedding, but my 90 year old gramps made it, already in middle-age when the war broke out. He was captured by the Germans in North Africa in a rear-guard action, covering the retreat of essential British and American forces, and for most of the war he toured Europe courtesy of German and Italian tour-guides with automatic machine guns, barbed wire fences, and no sense of hospitality at all. But we visited her grandfather, Charles, after the wedding and gave them some wedding photos..  Fit old bugger he said when he saw the photo of my grandfather. It was a poignant moment, as we sat together and looked at the photo-album. Auntie Anne was there on that day. Her sister had died recently, and her whole body was  far too stiff . She had enjoyed the photo-album. Charles told me a story then. He used to be a boxer. One day a domestic worker got in a terrible fight with her husband. The husband had demanded that she go back to the Transkei with him and she had refused, and now he was forcing and beating her. Charles had decided to intervene and the result was, that after slugging it out with this guy all night, Charles had ended up knocking his teeth out on the garden tap. She finally did go back with her husband to the Transkei, however she did so without coercion, and her husband eventually got trained in boxing by Charles and they went on to be good friends. Out of breath now, and quite overweight, he gave us some cash as a wedding present. I bought a cricket bat with my bit. My wife kept imploring him to see another doctor, but he had seen  enough doctors. We returned to her father s house, and I am prompted to ask her father about her grandparents, as he had not even visited them for over a year. Why? Because, he was in business with two of his brothers, and the youngest one got fired for shirking. So in response, the youngest brother, Reigh, turns her father in for tax evasion, and moves in with the grandparents, who take his side in the ensuing disagreement. Charles had told me his reasoning. Firstly my wife s father should not have fired his own little brother, second he should have paid his taxes. And so Charles said he was not going to make a third mistake by agreeing with him. He had after all brought the whole thing on himself. If he was going to cheat, and skip taxes, how can he go and accuse his brother of shirking? My wife and her father s girlfriend prompt me to speak to him. They re old and he may never get a chance to see his own parents again. Don t you think its wrong that he won t talk to them? It takes some prompting, as I feel a bit shy and uncertain what to actually say. I venture to him:  um& your mother seems OK half the time - a bit like a bad TV reception - its like sometimes she makes sense, and sometimes not. He smiles slightly. I assume he is sensing that I ve been put up to this comment. He sits momentarily, with a distant look on his face. Then slowly says:  Do me a favour. If I ever get like any of those two, put me out of my misery. After that, I don t dare push it further. My question about her grandfather, unsaid on my lips. Shot down without even being heard. My wife asks him why he has not visited them for a year. He says he has. He looks at me sheepishly. Gives a nervous half-smile.  When? She asks. A while back.  You told me you hadn t visited them. They even said you had not been to visit them either. The nurse also said you had not. Why did you not tell me that you visited them? She looks at him with nervous eyes, and clenched teeth. He shakes his head, looks away, speaks no more on it, and heads upstairs making an arbitrary excuse. VI We return to Grahamstown, and she says she wants to move closer to Durban. We both like Port St Johns, and its position is perfect. Port St Johns is our next place of residence it seems. Its ideal as it s a good half-way point between Durban and Grahamstown. But those plans never bare fruit as in quick succession, both grandparents are dead.  Someone has murdered them. she is adamant. Eyes wide. Who could possibly want to murder such decent and friendly old people? The youngest uncle and the nurse are her suspects. He s the one that turned her Father in to the tax-man just for the profit because he was too lazy to work. The entire family inheritance has gone missing.  Its him and his wife. They were leaching off them the whole time. Can you imagine living with your parents at that age? But its his wife that made him do it. She is the tax-collector. They re all fat and greedy she tells me:  parasites. I remember back to when the grandparents were alive. She had been certain they were being murdered somehow, and not long after, they were both dead. Could they really have done that? How? Surely someone would notice something like that if it was true? We visit the youngest uncle and his wife and son. Her father however insists we have no reason to visit them. We visit anyway, she says she just wants to see her cousin, their young child. He is innocent after all, and has hurt no-one. She has to defend this point of view on numerous occasions, even getting angry with her father to make him back off. When I looked at them, the three of them together, they seemed incapable of such a heinous thing. The cousin seemed a sweet, sensitive and caring little boy. No evidence of abuse on him at all. I had looked for this earlier, because my wife had said that someone, who had whistled all the time, had abused her very badly as a small child. I was never allowed to whistle in case my head got bitten off by her. That had squashed our plans to be a rock 'n roll band. She never would tell me who abused her, though it was clearly someone in or near the family. It seemed unlikely that it could have been the youngest uncle, he was her favourite uncle when growing up. But she had also contradicted this by saying the youngest uncle had  bullied her when he came back from the army, after someone had held a hot clothes-iron to his head. The apartheid South African Defence Force, was notorious for such hostile acts between troops. I had hardly heard of anyone who experienced any aspect of it that did not have some horror story to tell. Yet it seems the word  bully is often used as a way of glossing over what is genuine life-damaging abuse. I had heard professional psychologists use this term to lighten the load on the shoulders of the abuser. This white-washing, however honestly motivated, makes it harder for the abused to feel justified in their outrage. It makes them feel like more of a victim, as the abuse is just dismissed as mere  bullying . The scars are on my wife though, were self-inflicted. The psychological result of genuine abuse. Not mere bullying. She had more piercings than could easily be counted. Tattoos and scarification. A pattern of the sun had been cut into her back by a knife, which had left a decorative scar. The typical white scar lines on the fore-arm were also easily visible. Yet, these three we had visited had nothing remotely like that on them, and nobody avoided each other, or flinched or seemed scared. Impossible, I thought to myself, they could never do such a thing. The coroner said that her grandfather s heart was twice as big as normal, and he had died of a heart attack. The poetic nature of the man with the big heart distracted me. I try console her,  you re in trauma I say.  Both of them dying together must be terrible for you. But them being together their whole lives and dying so close to one another, is a beautiful thing. A perfect unity. Its what you and I speak about all the time. On many occasions, she had told me with sad eyes, how much she loved me, and that she wanted the two of us to die together one day. She feared losing me to death, more than to a conventional break-up.  I never had a mother she cries.  I threw a vase at the T.V. when I was a child. It s the only memory she has of being, Father, Mother, and daughter. The grandparents perfect family unity had not passed to her parents generation.  No one knew of my existence until the age of five. My father kept me secret from his own family. Eventually the army contacted them and they demanded to see me. After that, I lived with my grandparents. They were my real parents. And they have been murdered. It was the nurse, she had her picture in my place in the lounge. She s just a nurse. Why is her photo on the bookshelf if she s just a nurse? Her eyes are pain. I try hug her, and say  people die. People just get old and die. Its natural that people just die. She pushes me away, stares lividly at me, talking between clenched teeth.  Why won t anyone believe me? We were in the process of buying a new car from my brother, when news of the death of the grandfather arrived. I bought a laptop with the cash from the old car for our business. In retrospect, it was at this point, that she lost respect for me. She still loved me, it seemed, but nothing I did was good enough after this. Even though we had new stuff, which normally seemed to make her happy. She hardly ever cooked again, and was suddenly unenthusiastic about Port St John s or even moving to Durban. The sparkle had just gone. If ever there was a time in our marriage where it seemed perfect, it was those moments dreaming of Port St Johns, before the grim reaper took his toll, some three years after those first three kisses that neither of us initiated. VII Before that time, her father had visited us. His legal situation was terrible, none of his accounts and taxes add up. He buys dinner for all her friends anyway. A full round of at least a dozen people. She asks him if he is sure about this expense when his situation is so dire.  This he gestures at the dinner table  is nothing compared to my problems. He remains remarkably calm throughout dinner for someone facing bankruptcy or worse. Afterwards, she tells me that he owes millions to the government for tax evasion. He tells me:  Can you believe those bladdy kaffirs have got some clever Indian and his computer to find out that I own a whole lot of companies? I remember back to when I first met him. He had said to me:  Do you want to be the manager of a company? I was taken aback at that point, and answered  what s the catch? Luckily he had not taken it further. Here was plainly the catch I had nearly stumbled into. He had been shuffling money between companies in order to avoid tax, or some such scam. One day she becomes frantic. Her father and his girlfriend are going to live in New Zealand. But he is not allowed to leave the country, so they have to travel separately. Finally he manages to get out by travelling through Swaziland. Some time after that we are invited to visit New Zealand for three months  just to see if we like it. Her father is going to give her fifty grand because she lost out when the family inheritance was stolen. She is unsure about where he is getting the money to give her. She is vague,  something about a family trust. I say:  Well why don t you go on a holiday. I can t afford to travel to New Zealand.  No we both must go. The invitation is to both of us. They even said they will pay half our air tickets. That means your half, I must pay for myself, as you don t have a full-time job.  But you once said  Never let me go to New Zealand, all the people I have met form there are miserable drips. Remember? They just miss you. Go and visit them for a few weeks.  You don t really love me. She is always so sadly beautiful the way she says that. Its her favourite line. She sticks out her bottom lip, pierced in a perpetual pout, and I d have to kiss her mock-sadness away. She often stubbornly pouts and blinks like a toy doll when she does not get her way. Hypnotic cuteness. Betty Boop. But I had been struggling financially, I never seemed to come out with a hundred bucks at the end of the month. Since September 11, 2001, business had dropped off considerably, no-one had money to spend. Turnover had dropped to one third of the previous years. Things really take a turn for the worse, and she picks any little thing to fight over. She is irritable and complains that my job is not good enough. I m distraught as I m paying quite a bit for the new car despite the loss in income, and all she can do is complain that things are not good enough. She will say almost anything to provoke me at times.  Are you going to be a municipal worker all your life? You just treat me like your property. I m just your dogs-body. Why don t you just hit me like all men hit all woman. You already hit me before.  Don t be ridiculous, I bitch-slapped you once, gently, because you were screaming like a lunatic. And that was years ago, before we had even kissed. And I was the one about to leave. You know you were in the wrong. She brings it up time and time again. After her harping on it for a number of times, I say  And I would do it again if you screamed at me like that again. And I would expect anyone to slap me too if I acted like that. We smack each other for the cheek of it all the time on the backside a hundred times harder than that, and a dozen times each day. You had already broken a wooden spoon on me for goodness sake? Why bring that up now? Why are you being so ridiculous? Why are you trying to get at me? She clenches her teeth, and looks at me accusingly.  Because people just die. I feel vexed. Whatever I do, if I wash the dishes, she complains they are not washed properly. I get the domestic worker to come twice a week. Still she complains. I suggest we get her three times a week. She just looks at me, coldly thwarted, ignores the offer. But the arguments continue. Our friendships to other people and business connections start unravelling fast. A good friend s wife accuses her of trying to sleep with her husband. They refuse to allow us to visit again. I ask her,  What s all that about?  I would never sleep with him, he has a big head and skinny legs. The accusations from the friend and his wife continue, so I ask her again,  what happened, some misunderstanding? Did you just try hug him or something? But the answer is the same each time I ask:  I would never sleep with him, he has a big head and skinny legs. She tells me of another friend, the Palaeontologist who introduced us:  He did everything possible to prevent us getting together. She reminds me of this a number of times. Both these two friends I had known for all of fifteen years. They had both been there when we were introduced originally, as I write this, all of ten years ago. She overcharges a new website client of ours by three times what she should have. He never speaks to us again, and we never see the money we are owed, and lose the website contract. It was our local mainstay. Our local business reputation goes with it. The photography shop where she works, suddenly also no longer wants our internet advertising. They give no reason, they re using someone else now. Eventually we have no-one left to visit, and her temper tantrums worsen. Especially after she gets lengthy telephone conversations from her father. These go on for as much as two hours. Though often, I enter the room thinking that the conversation is over, only to find her hunched over the phone, unmoving, silently listening. I cannot hear exactly what he drones at her, but obviously she is not allowed to speak until she is told she can, because she would often not say a word for the whole two hours. After these phone-calls from the other side of the world, her mood is worse than ever, accusing me of being a chauvinist for not wanting to visit her parents.  Why don t you just hit me again. Like all men hit all women. She is shouting now. I cannot bare it anymore.  If you don t stop yelling at me, I will phone my parents and ask them to take me away. But this just makes her yell at me more! I warn her several more times but she does not stop her tirade about absolutely anything she can. I am beside myself. I threaten to phone my parents at least a dozen times, she does not stop. Eventually I phone my parents to ask them to come and get me. The reality sinks in, and this finally calms her down.  Why are you behaving like this? I venture in a soft voice. She stiffens, clenches her teeth, and looks at me  because people just die. She has no-one left from her family. Father, Grandfather and Grandmother, all gone. Only the mother that never visited her as a child.  She never visited me ever. It s the saddest thing I have ever heard. And I hear it often. VIII Physical illness and a soaring temperature attack her every second week. After a few days of perpetual vomiting, and some herbal remedy prepared by one of the last people sympathetic to us, the fever eases, and eventually passes. But after a while the hostility becomes even worse and more cutting than before. She derides everything and everyone, and implores me to  beat her again, like all men beat all woman. After a particularly bad screaming session, in a state nearing emotional breakdown, she tells me one too many times  Why don t you just beat me into submission? You always said if I yelled at you again like this you would hit me again. With my eyes closed again, and a prayer on my lips, I give her the gentle slap she asks for. I am desperate, we will never move beyond this argument unless it happens this way. It has the opposite effect to last time. Her mood sours further than ever before. She walks with hunched shoulders and takes on the air of someone who is taking a real physical beating on a daily basis. I watch her from a distance at the supermarket, and am shocked at her dowdiness, and slouched gait. I have to try something. My cathartic gentle slap has backfired this time. I ve made it all worse. Last time it seemed to give her cause to examine her own invasion of my space. Now she looks terrible. Her pierced belly button, and countless other piercings, scarification, and tattoos, are an awful combination of wound and trauma. We return home in silence.  Hit me I say.  As much as you want, I won t touch you back. She is uncertain at first, but when I say  I know you really want to, she climbs into me and eventually starts complaining that her hand is hurting. My punishment carried on for some time. I look at the red welts on my backside, and think. Was it her grandparents that did this to her? She walloped me for nearly half an hour. It was a really obscure experience. But, it is not working out as well as I had thought, as I am not really feeling it, and she is therefore not really satisfied. So she takes to me with a shoe, and I yelp and cry, and she laughs through her tears for the first time in ages. It did not hurt me. I pretended to yelp. But the tears on her face, that my cries brought, finally allow some emotion other than anger to surface. Her tears are real. It has worked! I am astounded at the change in her. She is happy and sparkles again, more than ever before. The shroud is gone.  Please can we go to New Zealand she says with shining loving eyes,  both of us. If we don t like it then we can come back. The visa is only three months. And I haven t been overseas for nearly two years. My father is not coping very well. He needs me. We can make money on websites. He is demanding that we go visit, and I won t leave without you. The work permits are arranged already, and her father s new wife will get web-site contracts for us with her connections. I am broken.  ok. She sparkles.  But we are going to have to save up for six months first. This going to be expensive. And if it doesn t work out after three months, then we come back. I can t afford more than that. She sparkles.  If you don t like it we can come back and do an English second language teaching course together, and go to Taiwan, where my friend Annie lives. IX We are alive again. We start writing adventure stories together about islands and volcanoes. It will be interesting to live abroad for a while. What have we got to lose? Its only three months after all. If we can t get decent work, then we can come back and do a quick English teaching course, and travel and teach in Taiwan. Or magical China. She looks at me with china-doll eyes. Her lip has lost its piercing now, and her nipple is long-healed. But the hole where the piercing was in her lip has left a dimple. And the prettiest pout ever says  I love you in a sing-song symphony that echoes still. Her lips turn to water as she quenches my mouth. Giving me her everything, giving her love, her pain, her salt. Holding on tightly. Like a limpet. A big picture is always made up of many small pieces of detail. Each is meaningless and insignificant if looked at on its own. And yet, we can guess the picture easily, even if half the detail is missing. This is how we solve jigsaw puzzles and cross-word puzzles. If we look at all the pieces, one at a time in turn, we will still not see the picture. We must have all the pieces together at once. Otherwise all we have is just a long list of meaningless unconnected detail. We only see how the small scenes, and seemingly meaningless drama of everyday life, make up a meaningful understanding of our relationships, when we look back in retrospect. After the fact. However, the cold facts and unpleasant arguments, we tend to push aside and out of our awareness. We want to think positive, and focus on the fun in life. Like the joy of travelling to an unknown country. Just forget about the arguments. Lets just not fight. But we hardly disagree now that I have relented to this single demand. It may appear, as I write, that she is domineering. But that seemed a small facet of her. For the most of the time, she had been caring, loving, and I felt warm and more alive than ever while with her. It was only occasionally, that she would steamroller me like this. So seldom in fact, that I hardly noticed the patterns her domineering side took at the time. These patterns should be obvious to the reader, as I have focussed on the detail that makes those patterns relevant, and I have for the most part skipped out the warm days playing with kittens in the sunshine, and the times we spent singing songs by Sublime and Rodriguez over and over together. For half the year we prepare and save cash, but as the time for departure arrives, she delays the date of leaving, week after month. Will not say why, or when we can leave. We ended up staying with my brother for three months of delays, before we finally jetted off together. We left most of our stuff with my brother, before being flung into orbit and ending up half-way around the world in New Zealand. Bush and his posse started flinging missiles into Baghdad, killing thousands, as we had butternut soup at a French restaurant on Auckland s North shore for the first time. X No work permits. But I can work illegally on her Father s construction site at minimum wage plus $2. I remember back to before we were married, and how badly and infrequently she was being supported by him while studying. I always had to help her out, with rent and groceries. Since our marriage he had offered nothing to help us, other than the comment:  You re on your own now, before withdrawing all his support. I wish he had left us alone. Luckily I manage to maintain programming software in South Africa via the modern marvel of tele-commuting. But the massive chunk that the money-changers take, drowned any sense of having money to spend on anything but the very basics. Some items, like medical or dental costs could inflate ten or even thirty times. To rent one bedroom was more than the cost of renting the five bed-roomed settler house we had once stayed in. Fortunately my wife has a miraculous tooth remedy that even fends off root canal treatment, so I avoided having to pay a South African dentist seven and a half grand for what would cost a couple of hundred bucks back home. The first morning I stumble into the kitchen suffering badly with jet lag and make a bowl of cereal, rinse the bowl and put it above the dishwasher, on the dish rack, as the washer is full of last nights clean dishes. Her father tells me later that the bowl I cleaned is a  half-job . Then suddenly realises that there is a dishwasher, and mutters that it doesn t work properly, so I should clean the bowl completely before putting it in the dishwasher. The second morning we are in New Zealand, we are awoken by a knock on the door and her father bursts into the room without waiting for an answer. He seemed disappointed not to catch us in bed together. I had put the spare mattress on the floor instead, as the bed he supplied had felt uneven. Both him and my wife kept insisting that the bed was fine, that I should sleep on it. But it hurt my back after ten minutes.  He sleeps on the floor just like a kaffir he mutters. The next day my morning greeting was:  Did you get up early today because you pissed in your bed? He had made the same remark, I remembered, when we had stayed over in Durban, a few years back. The dog kept pissing on the garage floor, despite being told at least a hundred times a day that he s  daddy s little boy in the strangest Mickey Mouse voice. Then being walloped lovingly for performing the daily urinary ritual. The poor flinching Sharp had been in quarantine for six months. Forty grand for pet transfer around the world. Four times the price of a human air ticket. I had pointed out to my wife how it was not quite the done thing to wake someone for ritual breakfast meals when they do not ask for it, especially as I mostly work at nights, being a computer programmer and author, and find such times quieter, and easier for intense concentration. Thus I sleep in the morning. And its astonishingly rude to open the door without being told you can, especially first thing in the morning. Even children understand that. Maybe its just part of the generation gap. But time for me is flexible. I prefer to sleep in the morning, and work at night. So he resorted to singing outside our door every morning in an off-key tone, the same two words over and over again.  Three Degrees, Three Degrees, Three Degrees. Between the fourth tenor and his three degrees and  daddy s boy we were awoken on alternative mornings at the crack of dawn with his constant bleeping car-alarm, which had to be turned on and off at least twenty times each morning. No exaggeration! It was broken, he said. Weak smile. Funny how it was only broken in the morning. Why  three degrees I ask her? He just laughs, and says it again. She walks away without answering. She looks distraught, is crying. I don t get it. She locks herself in the bathroom for ages. The electric garage door opened and closed at the slightest opportunity. The noisy grinding electric motor, just a few feet from my bed. At least five or six times each morning without fail.  Three Degrees. Three Degrees. Three Degrees. Thank goodness he didn t attempt whistling. I was sneered at because I did not keep the hours of  normal people. When I got asked by him if I walk barefoot because I am a kaffir, it came to a crunch. The two of us had been on an evening stroll, and we had sat looking at the stars, sitting together in a vacant construction site. I say:  We can t stay any more. Its been nearly three months, no work permit and, endless contradictory stories from the New Zealand immigration department. We had queued all day to have the door closed in our face, and suffered endless processing with no permit in sight. Her father will spend thirty-five grand for an English teaching course that costs two grand back home. He will do this even if she drops out of the course and does not finish it, just so that she can extend the visa for another six months. But I must use my inheritance to send for our stuff in the mean time.  For the hundredth time, I can t afford to spend my inheritance on getting your furniture sent around the world. That is money for owning a house. What about using your share of your inheritance that you were promised?  What inheritance? she looks at the ground.  The story about the family trust or something. Part of the reason we came? He said he was going to give you your share as it had been stolen. Remember? Nothing. I inquire with great concern.  Remember??  I don t know what you are talking about. If you go back, then you go without me, I can t leave now.  But you said three months.  Things have changed. SNAP. cut. Whatever& Lets just jump ahead after a nasty row. Half an hour of mutual frustration, not worth repeating in detail. I walk away. She is alone in the dark, so I hide behind a tree. After a few minutes, she walks past. I follow at a distance, make sure she gets home safe; but I can t return, I carry on walking into the night. Walking will do me good, I m starting to carry a bit of weight. Her father had remarked how I had resembled Reigh, the youngest uncle, who had a serious weight problem. There was something untoward about the way he said it.  Just Like Reigh&  , in three sing-song tones, softly to himself. I pointed this out to my wife as evidence that he was trying to get at me. Despite him obviously saying it, she refused to acknowledge he had. I know I have good hearing, but had he said it too softly to be heard, or was she just refusing to acknowledge his snide remark? She had been standing beside me, she must have heard him. XI But now I am alone. On the wrong side of the world. I picture a globe in my mind, with New Zealand stuck between the south pole and the vast Pacific ocean. Not only nowhere, but nowhere near anywhere either. It felt like I had almost slipped off the edge of the world. The last place to be inhabited by people. Well that s a local legend, if its not true. Who can say for sure? It certainly felt like it that night. For at least a week we argue. How am I going to survive? My computer programming contract cannot last forever, especially as I am on the other side of the world. We are both in agreement about one thing. We cannot live with her father. However, beyond that, we argued in the valleys and the fields, and we argued on the landing grounds, and on the beaches, and at the sea. She never did surrender. She will say anything to make me stay too. She does not want me to leave. And she sounds sincere, but then her arguments take a sinister racist tone for the first time since I have known her, lets call it afro-pessimism, and reserve racism as a specially privileged term for use on people more like her father. It makes no sense either way. She had many black friends in Africa, how come this sudden change? I am shocked. This is not her? This is not the most sensitive girl in the world, who loves and cares for every little mouse her cat killed. We had at least a dozen mouse funerals, with tears and everything. Tirade. Say anything, until he gets tired of your meaningless arguments that have no cohesion. Say anything. He ll eventually tire. That s what it feels like she is thinking to herself. I ll have to stay. The visas can be extended for another six months via some consultant who is an ex-immigration official. That should be more than enough time to get whatever work is available and its corresponding work-permit. To get a job offer, everyone tells you to get a work permit. To get a work-permit you must get a job offer. That s called a catch-22. Ask Joseph Heller. It seems that full immigration is the best way to secure such documentation. Anyway, we rent our own place. She insists on staying in the North Shore, even though it s the most expensive, and she had initially said we could live in the country-side when trying to get me to agree to stay on. We ll make more money here. But it costs more, and my money will not go as far here& By this stage I cannot risk more confrontation. My savings start to vanish very quickly. At least we won t be ordered to put the furniture back in its exact place, if we bump it out of place by an inch or two. So life might improve. I add up the jobs I have applied for unsuccessfully in the last few months: 98. We ll have to live worse than students on what I make after it gets chopped into less than half by the exchange rate, and rent is so expensive its just a joke. Sweetest kisses. Turkish delight lips. We ll have it sorted out by November, six months is plenty of time. She gets a job as a waitress in a coffee shop. Her new step-sister has a work permit, so no-one questions her at first. We live without furniture in a house with cream carpets and coffee-shit-piss stains all over. It has glittered ceilings. An oriental woman moves out of the house. The landlady is called Angela, she struggles to get the oriental woman to leave. The oriental woman uses an English name: Angela as well. She tried to get residency unsuccessfully, then lost the last of her money, some twenty grand, paying a consultant to get her a residency permit for Australia. He had not phoned for months. Now she had lost it all, and had nowhere to go. Back to Singapore? That idea gave her a worried look. Once she had gone, all that remained of her, were a pile of planks of wood in the garage and some half-built unrecognisable furniture. There was a telephone extension in the garage, so that she could build her furniture while waiting for that all important phone call. My ability to maintain a nocturnal lifestyle did not improve much. We were woken up at 8am sharp with the sound of wizzzz-rooooowwwwwrrr - from the oriental neighbours next door. More wood-working orientals! This one began his morning vigorously - wizzzz-rooooowwwwwrrr wizzzz-rooooowwwwwrrr - But after an hour or two, the frequency of wizzzz-rooooowwwwwrrr - diminished and by mid morning I could manage to go back to sleep until my  normal waking time. The humidity was too high during the day for work anyway, and the house on the other side, had nervous looking white South Africans, or Zimbabweans, who pretended not to notice anyone. The blaring grind of angle-grinder from that other  white African house on the block, stopped and started for about half an hour each day, and was so loud, and unpredictable, that concentrating on hacking computer code, was like trying to stack cards next to a gusty window. Luckily there was always the beach during the day, and the calm cool nights to concentrate enough for programming. The Orientals in the wood-sawing house moved out and more Orientals moved in. These ones hammered for an hour or two each day. They only lasted a few weeks before being replaced by some more Orientals who luckily had a quiet life or livelihood. I think it was about that time that the Eastern Europeans moved in up the road. As a family they landscaped and argued loudly until the garden took shape a couple of months later. Meanwhile my wife had been found out as having no work permit by her boss. She did not lose her job, but now instead of being a waitress, she seemed to spend more time on cleaning duty. I hoped that was the worst of it all. He was a creepy looking English guy, who could never seem to get past a quick nervous  hello before avoiding eye contact, and scuttling away. We celebrate her Master s Degree Distinction in Anthropology at an Indian restaurant. Each individual meal costs a week of groceries in South Africa. But it is nice. Makes her happy. I can afford to get her started on her Anthropology Doctorate in South Africa, but instead she prefers illegal cleaning duty in a coffee shop. I just don t understand it. She runs up to me eagerly, and hugs and kisses me when I visit at the coffee shop. With perfect zest and enthusiasm, and the softest yielding lips. I casually mention to her one day&  I met a guy today, he was selling strawberries, and I &   WHAT DID YOU TELL HIM? Don t tell anyone anything about us - just say we have been abroad for a while.  Even the landlady? I puzzle at her?  YES! , her eyes are furious cold.  Don t mention Africa at all, pretend we are locals, and the only way to get a job here is to buy one, so start making friends with people. I muse at the complete logical impossibility of befriending people without saying where you are from? Am I supposed to invent a new persona now? She counters this by telling me that its kind of a local tradition to buy a job and to get the work permit that way.  And I suppose that they give you a receipt for buying a job? As a guarantee? I cannot help the sarcasm. I look at her. She glares at me. I don t understand the urgency. Why couldn t we have gone to China and come back when the immigration has been sorted out? We can still go and make money, instead of this buying jobs to get a work permit nonsense. What kind of a life is that? Pretending to work at something that is meaningless just for a piece of paper? And for years on end? She tells me its getting harder to get into First world countries. I say  If you go back and get a Doctorate, and me a Masters Degree, how can you think its going to be harder for you to get in? With a PhD it will be a hundred times easier? She makes no sense. And I make no cents. I met one guy who hated Orientals almost as much as my wife s father-in-law hated Africans. He would get drunk and slap them for fun. As most of them were illegal foreigners, they had no rights to self-defence. One of the nicer New Zealanders, that guy. Seriously. But he was still no match for her father the ber-racist. Even though he could hardly get further from Africa if he tried, he was constantly making racist curses at every opportunity. Visiting for family dinner, became a test of jovial restraint. Luckily his favourite crime program interrupted the dinner ritual often enough. I remembered back to those first few months where as a guest I had been informed that as he pays the rent, he makes the rules, and that s why we have to listen to him and go to the immigration office when we says so, and have meals when he says so. We were only allowed one shower a day, because of the power shortage. Had he ever heard of the terms  Guest and  Hospitality ? I don t even bother to ask. November. Visas expire. She has to spend Christmas with her family as we did last Christmas with my family. Please excuse my sense of economy as I edit out the ensuing debate. How can I refuse her Christmas? Well, I say. January is the last, I just won t spend anything on Christmas presents for anyone. But come January I have no more money. My work is so thin now, my savings zero. We are surviving on fish fingers and frozen chips, and renting over-priced glittery ceilings with stained-cream carpets for the cost of buying two houses at home. Coffee-shop cleaning girl, and overweight computer hack. Sweet love. January. New Zealand immigration laws are being changed again. Her father will pay the  consultant , I am assured that I will not have to pay for any such consultancy. Her father will pay for everything. It s the same ex-immigration official who has thus far arranged our year-long  tourist visas to be extended beyond the normal three months. I remember the hollow wisdom of my words.  Lets teach English for six months or a year and come back next year with some cash instead of going broke. Well its next year and now we are broke. Just wait for February. I look down at my shorts. I am now truly fat! I have not had new clothes since arriving. The exchange rate makes it ten times the price, and for crap quality. I stitch my shorts together, and walk more and more each day, and just get fatter. Its absurd. Probably the rubbish food I think. The bread here stinks. I have to hold my nose walking through the bread section of the supermarket. The immigration rules have been changed again and we must wait until March. She tells me that I must spend my inheritance to move our stuff to New Zealand, and that  everyone in her family says I should now pay her student loan. Absurd becomes ridiculous. I had initially suggested working instead of taking the loan. Her father agreed to furthering the loan and undersigned it. And now, after everything, after I say I have no money left come January, now they expect me to pay it? I ll pay for the Doctorate then you don t have to pay back the loan until that s over. Then you can earn the money to pay it back yourself easily. We can do that when we have to go back to Africa in March. When our airplane tickets expire. O.K. She agrees, we ll have to do that as she is tired of the whole mess as well. Finally some sense from her. I suppose its been nearly a year. She has tried hard. I respect her tenacity. She is such a little fighter. Just never gives up. As much as it has hurt me, I admire her never-say-die spirit. She loves me. She just needed to spend some time with her folks. She fights with them often enough now, for the novelty to have worn off. I visit her at the coffee shop. She runs up to me and hugs and kisses me with her usual bouncy enthusiasm. She kisses and kisses me again and again. Despite all the rubbish, the love feels so true, so unhindered, that its easy to forget that we have had no viable future for a year. At family dinner, he sits directly opposite me. As I arrive he is glaring at me horribly. If ever someone gave me the death stare, that was it. Just because I believe a PhD is a better angle than paying back a loan? No-one has ever looked at me quite as menacing as that before. I can hardly eat. The student loan people are harassing her, and her father cannot pay the money from his account because of his tax issues in South Africa. He ll pay me back, once I use my money from my account. However, once I lend him the money to pay the loan, he quite simply refuses to pay me back. Its my duty to pay it, is his response. Her whole family says so. Is that theft or fraud, I wonder? She is in a bind. She pays me back in two dollar coins and five dollar notes. Tips and illegal minimum wages. She pays back about half of it eventually, but then we need to pay rent. I cannot ask for more from her the next month, she has less than I. Meantime the family go on skiing trips  that cost thousands . I am made to feel like I have grossly insulted everyone because I won t ski as I am having great trouble breathing the high altitude. He is such an asshole. Why do you listen to him? He just wants me out the way to make it easier for you to immigrate. He is trying to make us fight. That is why he stole that money from me to pay your loan. Do I have to destroy him? Is that the only way we can be free from him? She looks at me silently. Unmoving. Blinks. Blinks again. Is she saying yes? I repeat myself.  Do I have to destroy him? She says, in a sing-song voice  you don t know who you re dealing with. And casts her eyes around, almost as if he is listening.  He found out everything about you before we married. He wants me to sign a legal document to say I ve never met my mother. She looks away. I say to her:  That would only be of value if I am out the picture. If you divorce me. Then you get automatic residency in New Zealand as you have no contact to South Africa. Can t you see what he is doing? Why do you let it happen? No anwer, but shortly after that, I am hit with his next salvo. The  consultant wants more money. I must pay him this time. I am astounded that she can say this. Her father can pay, she says, but he wants me to,  just to see how serious I am. The only thing I am serious, is seriously broke. I refuse to go to the meeting with the consultant. She goes alone. Comes back in tears. Says: If I pay the consultant, she definitely will come back with me in March before the airplane tickets expire, to visit South Africa. Even if the immigration goes ahead. That comment felt strange. That was never in doubt. But I relinquish on it. I just can t take more arguing. I say, that I will loan her the money, but that she has to pay it back to me, as I refuse to put my own money in the hands of a corrupt ex-immigration official. At least my honour remains partly intact. Meanwhile she has worked her way up from cleaner, and the coffee shop makes her a legitimate job offer. Then they retract it. Rumour at immigration is that the coffee shop is paying people under the table. At about my 230th job application I get two real interviews for real programming jobs. Yet neither of those that interview me knows anything about computers, never mind software, or programming for that matter. The first interview is with an ex-policewoman from Zimbabwe, She reminds me of this curious fact at least three times in the hour and a half interview, an interview that does not involve any computer questions at all. She asks how long have I been looking for a job in new Zealand? Since the beginning of the year, I say. (I had stopped looking over the holidays, and did not want to seem desperate.) She tells me that once a C.V. has been around for a while, then if you have not been hired, its unlikely anyone will do so, as people recognise you, and avoid you. New Zealand is a small country. That s nice to know, I say.  What is my wife doing? she asks.  She has a job offer at a coffee shop is my answer. She does a psychometric test on me and determines that I am not suited to programming computers. I find it odd that I have been entrusted to write financial software that channels millions per year, but I am told by someone without any computer experience, that I will not fit in to the New Zealand computer clique.  You say your wife is working at a coffee shop.  No, I said my wife had a job offer at a coffee shop. What is this? Some kind of B-grade TV-Police interrogation? She has seen through me twice now. Both times she may have had that information already. She is new on the job, I remember her saying. The recruitment agency that set up this interview sounded like a place for young people, not a place where I would expect to find a middle-aged ex-Rhodesian Police-woman. I must call her every week, she tells me. Yeah, Right. My anxious wife awaits. She was so keen, she wanted to sit in on the interview. Can you imagine going to a job interview with your wife as your chaperone? The next interview is worse. There is a test and I am told it is half stuff that I know, and half a problem solving aptitude test. The test turns out to be mostly stuff I especifically said I had no experience with. And, the part that I was told it would be about, was non-existent. There is no aptitude test at all. The person giving the test does not have a clue what he is testing, so its all quite irrelevant. I had studied for two weeks, based on what he had initially told me the test would cover. I look at the test. No one with any real understanding of computer programming would set a test like this. It s just a list of arbitrary questions from the help files. The kind of information that if you really wanted or needed, you could just look up. It s a bit like doing a test for an English professor by asking him  What is on page 100 of the Oxford dictionary? It s the kind of test that you can only pass if you already have the answers, or if you had the combined memory of 100 programmers. On the way back from this dead-end experience, she yells at me as we get lost in the city, and lose direction for the third time.  Are you completely useless? she scowls. Our car is a rusted Uno. An Oriental drives past us in a New B.M.W. He is a child. I struggle to breathe over my increasing girth. I think back to our first arrival. We were soon whisked off in the first few days by her father to open a new joint bank account together. I was told that I should put my entire inheritance in the account because the exchange rate is getting worse. As well as any other money I have in my other accounts, or any money I can get access to. What did that mean? I wonder. What other money? But anyhow the value of the South African currency was not decreasing.. It had been improving steadily for years. Why a joint account? We already use our joint business account that your father told us to get, when we first got married. Modern convenience allows me to draw my South African money directly. It gets converted into New Zealand dollars by the Automatic bank teller. What s the point? His idea is just a waste of time and money. We must get another joint account. Its her Father s instructions. Why? She doesn t know. Ask him.  Oh, in case one of you dies he had said,  then there are no legal hassles. I had not touched my inheritance, it was for a deposit on a house. Why was he so keen to get me to spend all my money on anything as quick as possible? Just so that I would be so broke that I would have to work on his construction site? Ruin my life just to get another labourer? No-one had wanted to work for him since his arrival. No-one was desperate enough. But to ruin someone financially? Just like that? I had applied to join the New Zealand Army as a Psychologist, rather than work under his lawless jackboot. I looked over to my pretty wife as we inched along the clogged highways of Auckland. She was biting her bottom lip. I squeezed her thigh, and she instantly smiled warmly at me. Pretty kisses in the bumper to bumper gridlock. Six lanes of people on their way to their lives. A dour old woman, slowly edges past us. Looks at me with emptiness in her eyes. I pull my tongue at her and make gross noises. My wife laughs hysterically. Even hell can be perfect laughter if you let it. I pull my tongue at more dour motorists, most don t even see it. We are both having a great time.  I m not going back to Africa with you in March. I m letting my air-ticket expire. She has just been away with her folks for the weekend. An expensive skiing trip in the mountains. I was not invited. Someone had to look after the dogs, and I don t ski. Her eyes are fixed ahead of her when she says this. Almost as if she is hypnotised. She does not look at me.  The new immigration rule says that by the end of June, if we are not accepted, then we have to leave anyway. We get kicked out of the immigration pool. So we ll be together for our Fourth anniversary on the First of July.  OK I say. We talk about it softly. I agree without airing the complaints welling up inside me. I just cannot take more arguing. The whole mess hardly seems to phase her. In the end she tells me.  So its your idea that we will split up. I can t believe her irrationality.  No, its your idea. I just pointed out that it would be cheaper then we would only have to pay for one air ticket, whichever way the immigration call falls. She is small. With the softest brown eyes. There is a small gap in one of her eyelashes. She has a quivering lip.  Its only three months. We ve hardly been apart for five years. It would be good to spend some time apart. Absence makes the heart grow&  You know what is going to happen. I interject.  What? Her eyes are innocent and curious.  They will change the immigration laws again. I am surprised at how she had not seemed to see that.  I ve had enough if they do. I can t go on like this any more. My folks are just interfering with our life together. I went to an interview and they said  what have you been doing for the past year? I didn t know what to say. If they change the laws again, I m coming back. But you have to promise to come back here if they call us before July. Please don t leave me. I ll never ever love anyone but you. I never ever want to be with anyone but you. Please understand that.  OK. But this is the last straw. You can t shift it again. You re going to have to give up the house with the glittered ceilings and stained carpets, and go and live with your folks. We ll both save a small fortune on the rent, and I ll only be able to pay for the plane ticket, whichever way it goes, if we avoid rent for a few months. The look on her face is of disgust, like a baby tasting something bitter for the first time.  I m not living with him.  So how will we pay rent, and save for the flights?  I got a real legitimate job offer yesterday. Good pay it seems, so money problems should clear up when that comes through. But you have to come back if we are accepted before the end of June. I will only ever love you. I will never be with anyone but you.  But no more shifting the goalposts. No more extending the deadline. I ve lost everything I have earned for two years. I cannot believe that you are trustworthy, if you try and change the agreement again. Marriage is a promise to keep promises. There is so little trust left between us. The marriage cannot take another broken promise. Where is the new job offer?  A coincidence , she smiles wanly,  Next door to the ex-immigration official.  And I m supposed to believe that is a legitimate offer? Can t you see that this is all a big scam, this whole bloody immigration thing? Nothing.  Can t you admit that I even have an opinion?  No. You don t have an opinion.  Why are you being so blind to what is so obvious? Why are you being like this? Why? I do not understand? Why? Why? WHY? And she fixes her perfect brown eyes with the missing patch of lashes on me, and stares coldly through me.  Because people just die. XII She can t go back to the land where her grandparents died. A colleague of hers had also been attacked just before we left, while working in a rural area. Her unborn child had died after the attack. One of the people in her Anthropology project had been murdered in a fight over money in the ghetto just as her project was finishing up. Its true that South Africa can be violent. But most of that is localised to a few very poor areas. If you avoid them, you are as safe as anywhere else in the world. However she would normally go to any lengths just to get into the danger spots. Now she was afraid to just visit Africa? Her grandparents had been parents to her. She had never got over their deaths. But to blame a whole continent for that seemed crazy? Maybe she just wanted to get rid of me. I had been taken for granted for some time now. Perhaps she was just pushing me away.  You don t have to go back. You can just let you ticket fall away. We can go visit your parents together next Christmas. When we have our immigration sorted out. But comments like that are not made by someone pushing you away. I had missed my grandfather s 90th birthday. I may never see him again. And my old dog is nearly thirteen. That makes him 91 in dog years. No, I cannot just let my air-ticket fall away. That would be silly. I have to see my family.  Stay with me. Don t leave me. she says to me, in perfect, brown, sparkle-eyes.  Come back with me to Africa. I say to her. I hold her by her little finger. With my little finger.  Then you have to pay another sixteen grand to make the immigration application from Britain if we apply from South Africa.  What?  That s what the consultant says. That s why I can t come back. Its very confusing. I don t want to spend this last bit of time together arguing, when I know I cannot win, as reason had lost its value. We take the journey to the airport. On arriving there in a swathe of goodbye tears, we find out my flight is delayed for a week. A reprieve. We take a ferry ride to a reputable tourist island. Its supposed to be the best place to live. I had looked for a house to buy here when we first arrived. That was before I found out that we were not allowed to buy a house. We separate as she goes on deck for a while, and I watch all the other people. Its unusual for us to separate like this. Some of the girls are quite pretty. People file past me. Then a long stream of pretty girls walks past. Blondes mostly, as they walk past me, the girls seem to get prettier and prettier. I wonder if there is a beauty contest on board the ferry because the girls are so unusually good-looking. The last one in the line is the prettiest by far, a tall brunette with wild uncombed witches hair. Her stride is bounciest, her breast unfaltering, and her lip is my perfect wife s. We say goodbye at the airport - for the second time in a week. I give her an ornamental egg made of pieces of shiny blue-green-sea-shell. The pieces of the shell make the egg look cracked, like it is about to hatch. Its our nest-egg, I say. She loves it. Is very happy with it. She loves presents. I had managed to get her a few Christmas presents, cheap CD s and things. She had been disappointed with them, but the little shiny shell-egg seemed to go down much better. She kisses me goodbye and won t stop kissing me, holding me tighter. My bottom lips is hurting, I wonder if it is bleeding, she kisses so hard. Eventually I pry her loose and turn and walk away or we ll never be able to part. She comes running back and kisses me again. We go on like this for most of an hour. She cries. I cried that morning as she ate the breakfast I made her. When she was not looking. I remember the song that we played over and over again when we first hooked up, before we kissed, from the band called the  Smashing Pumpkins , the title was  We must never be apart. XIII The next time I saw her was just a few weeks later using a slow speed web-camera with poor quality and a terribly slow frame-rate. We chatted online almost every night. I would often get late-night strip-tease shows on web-cam from the other end of the world, which always ended with her pouting lips kissing the camera before it clicked off. And we waited at opposite ends of the Earth for the final decision from the New Zealand immigration department. Our future decided one way or another, we had nothing to argue about, even her father could not change the decision. We cherished our daily internet meetings, despite all the hiccups in MSN messenger. Its her birthday. She wants a website address. www.cyber-gypsy.net is her birthday present. She already has www.pixibain.co.za and pleads with me for www.pixibain.com as well. Please, please, please! How I wish I could touch her and not the telephone cable. Just give her a squeeze. It heartened me to know that she wanted a web-address with my surname on it. I had begun fearing that she was going to break the agreement to come back by the end of June, and was just stringing me along. But she books her flight in advance for the end of June. She can cancel it if the decision goes towards New Zealand. Its not the distance that makes it better. Its not the absence that makes the heart grow fonder. Its that there is nothing to be forced to disagree about by her Father constantly giving her orders that directly contradict our agreements and our financial well-being. Under the guise of a life that is better, he had been trying to ruin me financially so that we would be dependant on him. Then I would have to give in, and work for him. Her step-brother was working at a food shop when we arrived, and his constant maligning of the fact that he worked evenings, eventually resulted in him going to work on the construction site. The South African housing market is booming. I have to put my inheritance into the land. It ll be a decade before we can buy land down under. House prices have jumped 25% for each of the last two years. South African housing is increasing at the same rate as Hong Kong! If I had bought instead of persisting with their daft New Zealand plans, I would have made 200 grand profit in the last two years instead of losing everything. I have to buy now or never.  Hi  Hey lover-puff  Guess what I did.  What?   I bought us a house!  You so sneaky. Is she is amused that I managed to actually spend my money how I wanted?  Its an investment that can be rented out if the immigration decision goes to New Zealand, otherwise if we don t get in by the end of June, then we can live in it, and do it up, add on rooms and things. Its got a big garden, and is two blocks from the sea. We can share the profit 50-50, when we sell it in five years time or so. Depends on what the market does. She starts decorating the bathroom full of mermaids and naked sea nymphs in her mind. From the other side of the world, across the vast dark sea. Where I cannot see. She can t wait to see it. It ll all be sorted out soon one way or another. Just a few weeks left. XIV About a week before the end of June when the final decision is to be made by the New Zealand immigration department, we speak on the phone. Her voice is stretched thin along a wire under the ocean.  Even if the immigration does not come through, my father and I are making a separate special appeal to the immigration department to allow me to have residency status based on my never having seen my mother in my adult life&  Oh no. Not again. The arguments are awful. I cannot believe she is risking the end of our marriage over a stupid piece of fictitious beurocracy. Her mother was in Cape Town and was more than willing to be with her. I never could understand, why she never had contact during her upbringing. Her grandfather had spoken fondly of my wife s mother too, when he was alive. The New Zealand immigration department makes its decision. Our application does not make the cut. Yippee. Also, they have changed the rules again. We have not been accepted, but we are also not kicked out of the immigration pool as we had previously been told. We are now allowed to carry on applying. Gee. Who could have guessed that was going to happen? Why did they have to give the worst possible answer. The one that is going to strain the last brittle fragments of the marriage. I can tell that she is going to go back on her agreement. Its so obvious, she even admitted to it before the announcement is made. Suddenly I get the inquisition. Whose name is the house in? Mine or my father s she wants to know. Its too complicated to explain, bonds, inheritances and such issues.  Both of ours. What does it matter. I say. She will only come back if I agree to sign a separate legal agreement to give her half the house, the moment we get divorced. I ve already said she can have half the profit. She wants exactly half the entire house. We can get remarried in community of property, I say, then we both get half of everything.  She will think about it. A few days later, the answer is  no . I have no rights over her possessions and she gets not less than half the entire house, to be sold the moment of divorce in a separate legal agreement. Otherwise she is not coming back to Africa. She also now demands half of my salary as well. I can t believe what I am hearing. These are all her Dad s unfair ideas. Coincided to time with the immigration decision, or rather, indecision. Even if I agree, he ll just find a way to make it more unfair. Even if I agree to go back to new Zealand, I ll never have another decision in my life. He ll just be a bigger asshole than ever before. There is no work there other than as a labourer. Even her step-brother could only get occasional work through him. And he was never paid on time. Her step-brother had once told me  The only person that ever treated me worse than him, was my own father. He also had the signs of abuse on him. Just before I had left, my wife had been piercing her step-brother s nose. Without anaesthetic, and just a sewing needle. I could not watch. I had spent nearly two years of my life with them, and had been treated as having no opinion or say over my future at all. Despite the two of us making many decisions that would have resulted in our financial and academic security, his decisions were simply corrupt with no aim of furthering any of our chosen careers. In fact, the extent to which all laws were broken and any concept of fair and ethical treatment had been ignored, had left us in a terrible situation. We could not account for over a year of our lives as far as our C.V. s were concerned. I stick to my ground. Half of the profit is more than fair. I can sense her father is just trying to put a wedge between us by interfering yet again in our mutually agreed upon decisions as husband and wife, and forcing us to break any agreement he can get us to. Since I had bought the house, his instructions had been more unfair and biased in her favour than ever before. Downright criminal blackmail actually. Why does she let him do it? Surely she can see what he is doing?  You don t know who you are dealing with. she had said to me more than often, when I had asked her if she wanted me to tell him to stop interfering in our lives, face-to-face. He had been in the South African Police during apartheid, as well as a medic in the apartheid army. He had put more than half a dozen people in hospital with his bare hands. Or so the legend has it.  Look we can t discuss this over the phone. You ll have to come back here to Africa, and once you start your new job you ll need a new car, so you may as well sell the old Uno for the air ticket, and at least come and have a look at the house. We really need to talk face-to-face. If its too much hassle, I ll borrow the money for your air-ticket. Just come and visit for a couple of weeks to see the house I bought for us. Discuss this face to face.  Yes , she says, we have to discuss it face to face. The next day her answer changes. All I now get from her is that I have not given her a good enough reason to come over. And I must start making payments on her student loan as it is my duty as her husband.  If you come here I say,  then for the price of two months payments on your loan, you can be registered for your doctorate for the entire year, and won t have to pay them anything. It makes no sense at all to pay back the Master s degree. it s a total waste of money, when for only two months payments she can start a Doctorate. Pay 30 grand for a masters, or pay 4 grand for a doctorate, think about it. She has to get back to me later. She needs time to think about it. No. I must now pay the entire student loan for her masters degree in cash before she comes back to Africa, if I want to see her and discuss our future together. It obvious that even if I pay it, that won t bring her back, then the next demand will be put on me, then the next one. They have lied and changed stories so many times. Never once seeming to consider how it is affecting me. And they are doing everything illegally, from working, to smuggling money, to his tax stories, and as for that consultant and those so-called job-offers. What else are they up to that they have not even told me?  Stop being ridiculous. You can t just do that. is all I can say. Then her comments go like this  I am coming, I m just not saying when. One week.  How about we meet up in Australia in two years time? That suggestion, just stung my soul.  You will never come back to New Zealand with me to visit again if I go back to Africa. she says. I make a plan to go to New Zealand straight after teaching in Taiwan. I make the comment because it makes financial sense, not that I expect it to be taken as seriously, as wasting my money on bribes that get me nowhere is the only idea that has been offered by them. And buying a job? There was a joke story in a comic I once read called 2000 AD, about jobs being bought and sold in a socially backward future based on an oppressive state. It must have been inspired by New Zealand.  I cannot come back in case you kidnap me. And this? What does that mean?  If I come back, then I am getting a gun. At first I try and disagree, but it is pointless.  If you so much as lift a hand against me, I will kill you in your sleep. She is just trying to chase me away. Why is she saying these ridiculous things??  I will only come visit you with back-up. Back-up? What? Back-up??? Somewhere in the midst of all this nonsense I grow weary and say to her  Divorce in exasperation.  Divorce? she squeaks back at me, genuinely hurt. I can feel her little girl tears. Why did I say that? I love her!  Of course I don t want divorce, but I can t keep going on like this. Maybe if we get divorced we will save the friendship. Maybe the two of us need to divorce the institute of marriage. Your demands and comments just don t make any sense. Its downright rubbish and you know it. We had an agreement, the basis of our marriage was that agreement. Her reply:  It was just an agreement. I say all these meaningless things in confusion and pain and torture and loss of anything else to say. I suggest turning to Islam, so I can get a second wife to keep me company while she spends the next two years or more of her life in New Zealand, cleaning toilets and somebody else s children s backsides, trying to get residency of Australia, a country she has never even been to. I m being sarcastic, though she actually sounds amused at this. And I must meet up with her there in two years time??? She cries. I love you. I will never love anybody else. It sounds real. It feels real. Why? I m told I m just being lazy. I can always work on her father s construction site. I think back to when I was first nearly talked into that one. It had dawned on me that doing one or two days physical labour would be a good way of earning money and losing weight. Then his comment:  Your first three weeks wages go towards paying for your tools. She had a strained smile on her face. Clapping her hands together like a little girl, jumping up and down.  My daddy and hubby working together, how cute. The look on her face was impossible to describe. But it was not cute. More like a forced grin between clenched teeth. Everything about her body language seemed to say  NO! When she said  How cute , the tone of her voice was riddled with trepidation. What future can there be in a construction business when he is not even allowed to own land? His business is in his new wife s name as well. He must be so lividly jealous that we could be a happy couple in our own house together, while he has lost everything, except an ever decreasing pile of cash.  Its not our house, its you and you dad s house. If you throw me out in two years, you won t give me half the house. I have to have a separate agreement, to secure my future.  What about my security for my future? So you can just take half my house for no good reason? You get half my property when your father decides you must divorce me, and yet I am offered nothing in return. That is just black-mail. Why not just say it:  Pay me or we get divorced. I think to myself.  Lets get remarried in community of property then I suggest. Even that would be a big risk. But still her answer is no. She gets half my property in advent of divorce, and I get nothing. A new separate legal agreement, if she comes back to Africa. But no matter what I agree to, it makes no difference, he will find a reason to break the agreement. Its been the story of my life for the last two years. If he wants the divorce so badly, let him have it. If she can t stand up to him, now, she never will. My life will be hell unless I let her go. Obviously he wants her with him that badly. I just cannot live like this. My future will never be certain, the financial demands will just get more ridiculous. XV I e-mail him to discuss the divorce with him, seeing as though, her opinion does not seem to count as far as these decisions in her life go anyway. Its all his provocation, this is obvious, she is not that stupid. But she has no back-bone. No honour.  You are a beurocrat! I tell her on the phone. It s the worst true insult I can think of. He is the happiest and chattiest I have ever heard him at the prospect of the divorce. He wants to discuss every detail, even what to do with my football boots. It s the longest conversation we have. He will send her uncle to fetch her stuff in a few days.  It must be in your way. He suggests that it is better if he and I handle the divorce instead of her, as then, he says, there will be no emotions to get in the way. He drags the word emotions out in a way to suggest that all emotions are somehow a lowly thing, and that this is somehow a manly deal anyway. I hold my tongue at the anger itching in my mouth. I swallow, and say:  She can keep using the laptop until she can get a replacement so long as I receive the money she owes me for the consultant, the car and the deposit on the house rent. He is happy with this. He wants to issue the divorce himself from his side.  Its easier that way. Let him have his pleasure. It makes him feel like he has achieved something. Her and I become friends again, now that divorce is on the cards. We have no more obligations, nor expectations. She never speaks against me, or says anything to suggest she wants the divorce. She is just towing the line. She is always still so happy to hear from me. It hurts to hear her happiness when I phone. Its all so crazy. I can hear the love in her voice. It is the most perfect thing to hear. The sweetest goodbye fades slowly like a hot summer dream, glimpsing through your memory as it passes, surreal, vivid. Lost. And though I am very sad at losing her, I tried, and at least we loved a while. The months somehow pass and I receive no payment, nor does her uncle come to fetch her stuff. Its been half a year since we saw each other. Three months since divorce was first agreed on. I say  You can come visit anytime you want. I can get the cash for the flight, so you can see the house. We can still get through this, and if we do get through this, then we can get through anything. Her reply is startling, but expected.  You can come back to New Zealand now. I know you just needed to see your family. Yes, if we get through this we will be able to get through anything. I respond  I know that the Universe needs you in New Zealand right now. It must be lonely for your father, not knowing anyone. It was hell for me, its probably worse for him, given his legal situation, and I suppose you are the only person he has left. Especially as he has nearly been divorced from his new wife three times already. Her reply:  You know. I think we really are going to get through this. Sounds like promises of sweet-nothing to me. What makes her think he is going to suddenly stop interfering in her life? Its only going well between us as friends because he has the divorce he wanted. The end of the year looms, she was supposed to sell a computer monitor of mine in June. To encourage the process of returning my belongings, I tell her she can buy a new cell-phone with whatever she can get for the monitor. It will depreciate in value soon, as a new range of LCD monitors are coming out, the old cathode-ray variety are becoming obsolete. She is so happy to hear this! She has her eye on a second hand Nokia. The tears are involuntarily flowing as we speak to each other as friends. I can hear she is crying at the joy of my gift. The friendliness is so pure. We speak over each other, laughing because we can t hear each other because of the time delay on the phone line, but that it does not matter, we don t know what to say anyway. Its love and tears, that s all. She is overjoyed at a new second hand phone. That cuts me deep. He has reduced her to this. A waitress hoping for a new second hand phone. Just jealous because she could attain a Doctorate before she is thirty, and he did not complete first year University. Because he had to bring her up. No doubt that is the guilt trip he spins at her  I gave everything up for you. Like hell. Her grandparents brought her up. She could already have her doctorate by now if it was not for his interfering. He just has to hold her back. Keep her down. He always ridiculed Anthropology. Never celebrated her distinction. He resented it, which is why he wanted me to pay for it. Why does she let him do it?  How is the new job going?  What job?  You were supposed to start a month ago you said. The job next door to the ex-immigration official. Her response:  I say nothing. XVI I e-mail her: Either your father bought the new job, and you have been found out, or something else really big is going on that you are not telling me. I get no answer.  Its so big I can poke it with a stick I say, several times in SMS and e-mail. Now I am getting worried. Its been nearly half a year since our anniversary disaster, nine months since I have seen her. And still nothing from immigration? Her conversations become routine. Devoid of anything. Its been four months since her father told me my money would be returned in a few days. They have not even mentioned it since then, despite me asking several times what is happening. I can sense he is telling her not to return a thing to me. Even now, he has to hurt us more. Can t he just let us say goodbye decently? Her belongings haunt my house. Boxes and boxes, full of photographs and old family albums, many of them of her grandparents in pre-war sepia print. Loads of books and multimedia CD s on family heritage and ancestral trees.  How to trace your kin. She had mapped my entire family tree as well. She was quite obsessed with her ancestors. Anthropology. I remember her saying  Nobody in my family ever spoke about my great grandfather. Not hardly ever. Even when I begged them. No-one would say how he died I had asked her grandfather on her behalf, and got a few inklings of story from him when he was still alive. She was very happy when I had managed to find out about his war days. He never told her about them. He cut off the past. Now I had been cut off. Cornered into cutting my own arm off. Mid-October I send an identical e-mail message to both of them:  If I don t get a positive response or some of my cash returned to me by 1st November, I will assume you have no intention of ever doing so, and I will have no choice, but to take drastic action. When the divorce clouds first loomed, I had said  If you divorce me, and try to steal my laptop, I ll get you deported. I had repeated this to her several times. The laptop had great sentimental value. It was the cornerstone of our I.T. venture, and it was purchased with the money from which I had sold our first car. And that money, the exact eight grand, was the first real money I had earned working as a software programmer. Work is scarce in Africa, the university town we lived in, Grahamstown, was renowned for its 80% unemployment figure. So it had meant a great deal to me. The added significance is that a previous girlfriend had stolen my previous laptop, and disappeared with it to London. Ironically, this was the girl who we had gone out with together when I bumped into my wife many years ago in Cape Town. It was a sore point with me, and she knew it. I had muttered a lot about laptop thieves in the past, as someone else had nearly stolen my first laptop on several occasions, before it did finally get stolen. What is it with girls and laptops? On 1 November they both send an identical message back to me to say they have just received the  drastic action message, as they were away on a long weekend together. I return a message saying  fine. Please make positive response by 8 November. Nothing. I wait one more week. I had at that time lost over 20 kilograms (that s over 50 pounds) since my return from New Zealand. I had used my www noodle and visited Doctor www.google.com and searched for my symptoms. Thousands of doctors opinions, and medical advice from all over the world made it very easy for self-diagnosis. I am astounded at how easy it is to put myself back into perfect shape in just a few months. The cause of the obesity was a fungus infection that lives in your veins and makes you crave sugar and yeast. No matter how much you exercise, you just get fatter. Craving anything from sweets to bread to starch and even fruit juice. Anything vegetable that is vaguely sweet, it feeds on. I had also contracted good old athlete s foot and a nasty groin infection just for luck. The Athletes foot was easily remedied at the very fair prices of South African medicine. The other two infections are very similar. In fact all three infections were actually listed on the internet together. They all appeared almost as soon as I arrived in New Zealand. Two of them had the same cure. A very strict diet called the Aitkensen Diet. Thus you eat everything that the parasite does not. Basically meat, fish, and eggs. The combination of similar fungal infections had left me physically drained, and involuntarily overweight. The photographs of the final stages of the various infections, that I had found on the internet, were chilling. A natural death could happen in a few years, from a variety of symptoms, heart attack was common. There are various types of the common fungal and yeast infections, many with varyingly deadly results. Even the killer spores: Anthrax, a famous weapon used by terrorists were listed in this range of infections. There are numerous ways to kill a person with infections, any medic knows this, and many of them cause an enlarged heart, and heart attack. Hookworm disease, Secondary amyloidosis, sarcoidosis, Coxsackie B, HIV, heptitus C, Chagas disease. The www is great. God bless Google. But perhaps I'm being a bit paranoid. Perhaps up until now, I have not been paranoid enough. XVII I had been pondering my life intensely. When had the marriage gone wrong? It seemed a clear degeneration that had taken place, as we changed cars from the old Jetta, to the Newer Corsa. I had been annoyed that she was much more irritable and more dissatisfied than ever before, after having acquired the new car, she had so desperately felt she needed. But it couldn t have been the car. It so had happened that the change of cars, had actually coincided to the day with the news of her grandfather s death. That made much more sense. It was after the death of her grandfather that her sense of ethics had begun to decay. Freud tells us that the Superego is the moral guidance in our lives. Normally it is imposed by the parental figure. It was as if her Father had deposed her Grandfather s virtues and instead imposed a material viewpoint of the world on her. She was suddenly much more money-grabbing. She even tried to steal an extra entry form for a newspaper competition to win an even newer car. The cashier had caught her out. Why had she even tried to do it? She never even entered the competition with the one entry anyway? At the time I had thought she had acted on a silly impulse because she had been upset by the deaths and was not thinking clearly. Definitely that was the point it had begun to go wrong. For whatever reason. As my weight had started dropping off, so I naturally felt like exercising more and more. I had been bowling an old cricket-ball at the wall for a couple of hours without any effort. A year ago, it would have been a massive effort to bowl one ball. But now I was working up some great pace with the ball. It had felt, while in the grips of the fungal infections, as if I would never be able to play sport again. I had felt so old and tired. All was not lost. Just last week I had e-mailed her, saying I understood that the universe just needed to have her there, and that it must be very difficult for her father to have no-one else but her out there, as his new wife had threatened to divorce him three times. She owned his construction company. Probably because of his previous tax record. Even though she technically works as a part time pre-school teacher, she drove around in the latest silver four-wheel-drive, owning her husband s company, his life. The height of status for a South African - a shiny new four-wheel-drive. They had three of them now. A red one, a blue one, and a new silver one. So I reasoned, perhaps she just wanted to make her father happy, by doing as he wished and divorcing me to get her New Zealand citizenship. That was his plan all along, when they first mentioned her signing a legal document to say she had no connection with her real mother. There was no other reason to even mention such a thing, unless I was to be gotten rid of. He had sounded so excited on the phone, discussing in depth what was to be done with my football boots. His happy voice, gloating at how he had won. She was ruining our marriage because her father had decided it. Not because of the racism she had suddenly started sprouting. That was just a convenient excuse. No doubt part of his diatribe that he just droned into her on those long phone conversations when she said nothing. Was not allowed to talk until he had finished. She had echoed this tyranny to me many times. Not allowing me even chance to say anything. Your opinions don t count. What an asshole. He was obviously the one who had told her she could not have the  new second-hand cell-phone I had wanted to give her as a divorce present. So she would be assured of still talking to me. But her messages had become very strange. I had invited her to join me in writing educational software together - an online collaboration. An old dream the two of us had shared for years. Her answer? I have to think about it. Then days later. I am still thinking about it. That had sounded like she had to consult with him about any such arrangements at all. Before that she had responded less and less. Like the friendship was being choked. I had also said: Maybe the best reason to get divorced is to save the friendship, as I felt that I could not trust anything she promised me any longer as my wife. Every major decision we had made together as a married couple for the last two years, she had callously broken, without much regard for me or any logical explanation. But it had all been her father s doing. His authoritarian instructions. But she has such a strong personality, and is so much smarter than him. But no, she had to listen to his militaristic orders. He was a medic in the South African Defence Force. She had been brought up military style by him on his own mostly, until school going age. Even his own parents had not known about her. He had complete control over her. And he was obviously jealous enough to do this. Her ponit of view had become totally unreasonable just after I bought the house. That explained why the family photographs on display in the lounge consisted of his new wife s family, and the photograph from our wedding, was a photograph of him and her. It had puzzled me at the time. A bit thoughtless towards me, I had thought. But he was meticulous to the point of psychosis, what with complaining that I moved the couches out by an inch and everything. That picture was carefully placed. No doubt very thoughtfully. The whole divorce had been orchestrated by him, taking advantage of every opportunity to make us fight about our plans. That was why I had phoned him, and discussed the divorce with him. I wanted to hear myself if it was what he had really wanted. He made no attempt at all to patch things up. Now I know its him. Now I have to go back to her. Even though, there is no future in it. I cannot leave her, knowing that she needs and wants me, but it is him that is the problem. Funny how it is ok so long as I go back there. As I ran up to bowl the ball at the wall, metamorphosing my frustration into good health, I grit my teeth and a rage builds in me as I think to myself: I wish I could just put him out of his misery. XVIII My running stops. My own thoughts echo, spinning through my mind: I wish I could just put him out of his misery. He had said something similar about his own father. Do me a favour, if I ever get like those two, put me put of my misery. But his father was fine. A bit overweight was all. A real pot belly. And her father had not even seen them in a year or more. I had been prompted to ask him about them, and that was when he had said: Do me a favour, if I ever get like those two, put me put of my misery. He was a medic. Surely he would try and see if he could do something, especially if they were as bad as he had suggested? He had actually smiled when I spoke to him of his mother s illness. He had not even seen them in a year when he said that. How could he have known? Neither were they allowed to come to my wedding. It was ok to give them an invitation as they could not come. My wife had said that more than once. He hated them because they had defended his youngest brother, Reigh, in the tax issue. He was about to lose everything, at that point, then the inheritance went missing. He had always hidden his address, and telephone number, I was not even allowed to give his New Zealand address to my own parents when we arrived. Because of the tax, was the excuse. Is it actually possible that he murdered his own parents for the inheritance, in revenge for losing everything in the tax issue? She had said they were being murdered while they were still alive. She had blamed Reigh, the one who had turned her father into the tax-man. She could not blame her own father, but Reigh had no motive to kill Charles. It was my wife s husband that had not spoken to his parents since the tax incident. Then he claimed he had visited them, but then no-one new about it. So he had lied there too. He had looked at me when he made that comment, like the lie was to cover up that he had not been there. You don t know who you re dealing with. People just die. That was the reason she gave me why she could not disobey him. That was literally the death-stare he gave me at dinner. He had assault charges against him for at least half a dozen people. She had said to me a 100 times, after we arrived: We need a joint bank account for your inheritance. They had tried to get me to do that immediately after arriving, the first week. They had tried everything to get me to do it for months on end, but because they were trying to tell me that the South African currency was depreciating when in fact it wasn t, I had told myself not to do it, as their intentions were based on an obvious lie. I opened the account, but never put more than a small deposit in it. They had insisted this over and over and over again. This had been a large part of the racist hate speech directed at me by her father and his new wife. She and I had a particularly bad argument one day where she had tried to break me down, but I had ended up telling her off. I was under a constant barrage, especially in the first few months. I remember this: I had read out in a newspaper that there was an investigation into  another death on a construction site. I had asked her father if such deaths happened often.  Oh yes, people die on construction sites all the time. Quite common. The fear and trepidation that had been so clear in the tone of her voice, when he and I were about to work together on his site, positioned itself next to the piece of the puzzle that said: just in case one of you dies, then there are no legal problems with the money& And that piece positioned itself alongside the immigration law that gives her immediate citizenship if she signs that document to say she has never met her mother. So long as either we are divorced& or I am dead. And that piece sits next to the piece that insisted that the invitation was to both of us. She would no leave without me. And he clearly did not like me. Oh my& I run to the toilet as the vomit escapes from my insides involuntarily. Another memory comes flashing through my mind, and places itself alongside those others. While I am retching I can feel the tears streaming down my face. David Mendez, or Miendez was the foreman on his work site when she was little. He was a Zulu, and her best friend. They always had a great time together. One day David Miendez just never returned to work again. This was unusual as he was of the longest and most loyal workers on the site. When she asked where he was, her father had replied:  He probably just died in the Transkei. She was never allowed to mention him ever again. She pronounced his name in full, both words, the second name being said : Mee-en-dez. She told me this story so many times that the name has stuck quite clearly. Over and over again David Mendez. David Mendez. David Mendez. Him too? He probably just died in the Transkei. I remember my wife s father telling a story of seeing two young Africa boys throwing stones onto the highway. He had stopped his car and gave chase, all the time firing at them with live ammunition from his revolver.  Its fair , he had said,  They were trying to kill me. He had not been allowed to own a weapon in New Zealand. The images and memories come flashing through my head. I spend all afternoon in deep thought pondering over and over again. That is why he so desperately wanted nothing to do with Africa, why he had to cut it off completely. My job, is working with billions in financial software. No wonder I was  the only boyfriend he has not called  a piece of shit and physically beat up and thrown out of the house. He found everything out about you before we were married. She new that her grandparents were being murdered, even knew that someone in the family was doing it, that was why she blamed Reigh, her father s enemy, because she was too terrified to blame him. I cry all the rest of the day. I am overwhelmed at first by the deaths, the despair, the myopic mind of the man, but then I am left gasping for breath as I recall all those clenched teeth moments. Why won t anyone believe me? Her loss was bad enough, and knowing they were being murdered in front of her eyes would break anyone. But the loneliness afterwards, no-one even believing you. She must have thought I had even played a hand in it, and especially that condescending comment of mine, I had said it several times, and she had said it back to me when I had asked why she was allowing him to destroy our marriage: Because People just die. And it all explains his complete obsession with my inheritance. He wanted that too. He liked the game of bumping people off for their money. The houses he was building were completed many months after they were supposed to. He was just doing it as a cover. Even his wife s preschool teaching was a cover. The rent on their house could have covered the bond to buy three large family houses in South Africa. 3 degrees, 3 degrees 3 degrees He had also told me: Any other money you can, should be put into the new joint account. But my wife had opened another account for her earnings. The joint account for my money, but not hers? And he had been happy to risk her legal status to get her to smuggle that money in when we first arrived. His nickname for his 17 year old step-daughter was sour-puss. He had insisted that there was nothing derogatory about this. He had beaten up the stepson and thrown him out the house for asking him not to use language like that on his sister. The stepson had to apologise to be allowed back in the house. This was before we arrived, but he had insisted he was allowed to call her what he liked because  He paid the rent. Then when I am asked if i think the term  sourpuss is appropriate for a seventeen year old stepdaughter, he walks out of the house casually, saying he is going to go and  fuck the little whores at some or other brothel. No-one was ever allowed to use his computer. Girly pictures and stuff I had thought. Nothing intrinsically wrong with that. Except he was quite open about sex, so what was he hiding& ? Another time I was prompted to watch the end of one of his crime programs. I hate crime programs, they are contrived, and fake, the story always stops when the crime is solved. Life goes on. So it takes a big effort to get me to  just watch the end with him. Both my wife and his wife, again in unison prompting me. Like before. They know. The last scene of the T.V. program involves a paedophile mass-murderer getting caught out burying his victims on his building site. Everyone had tried to stop him from watching the end of this program as it was during his  civilised dinner time. A ritual that he normally stuck to with military zest. But he had to see the end of this crime program. In a soft tone he says  What a bastard hey , then he notices we are all watching him. He looks at each of us in turn.  What? At the time I did not know what they were trying to imply. There was nothing in his demeanour that suggested anything untoward. But, why had they been so intent on getting me to watch his response to the end of the program? That was certainly untoward. He had raised her on his own, without anyone knowing, after he had divorced her mother and he had won custody of her. Her mother had been an exotic dancer, and in conservative post-apartheid South Africa, he had her labelled as a whore and won the custody battle, but a few years later she went to live with the grandparents. On their demand. I cannot take this anymore. It all makes too much sense. Everything from her scars, to his personality, to her total fear of him. She could never do anything against him ever. She had always been powerless against him. That s why she always told me she loved me before wrecking our agreements. The only way she could counter him& was to marry me. Or were they both in it together? With me the sheep to the slaughter. Bleating about how its unethical to rob even large institutions& XIX I can see, in my minds eye, the image of her grandfather looking at me. And yet. How can I know for sure? For absolute sure? I phone her. No answer. Try again.  Leave a message says her phone&  I know your father killed your grandfather. Why did I say that? I need her response. What if he somehow listening to her messages? She always said that he snoops around everyone and always seems to know everything about her. Even if he had not gone that far this time, she was so used to him doing that sort of thing, that she was unlikely to respond, in case he knew. Then she would be in grave danger! What have I done? I wait 24 painful hours. No response. Surely if I was wrong then she would have told me so by now? Surely she would contact me back and say something like  Stop being ridiculous. I have no more choice. That evening I log on to the tax website and submit his address in New Zealand. The one I must never give out. I tell them about his tax story, and that he murdered his own parents. I have to. It all makes so much sense. That is why he never had a worry when his business was floundering. Everything was already organised. I e-mail him:  All right, have it your way then, but remember, you brought this on yourself. Years of confusion lift from my mind, yet now I worry. He has escaped everyone so far. He may have heard the message. He may go after her. He may be a member of the Afrikaner right wing. They may come after me. He must come for me instead. He must know its me and not her that has nailed him. He cannot hurt her again. I leave another message on her phone:  I ve turned you all in for everything. I wait. Not long. The phone rings. Its her& She sounds very upset. Does not mention the murder, just says  You can t just take drastic action like that&  She is crying little girl tears. Its all so terrible. The quaking voice, I can sense that her father s presence is behind her frightened voice. I do not know what to do or say.  You tried to rob me. or some such thing, is all that comes out my mouth, and my hand involuntarily puts the phone down quickly. Now I m grinding my teeth. I make a conscious effort not to do it. I feel trapped. Claustrophobic tears have been pouring for days. I can hardly breathe. The phone rings. I pick it up, and put it down again, I am hyperventilating now. It rings again. I just lose control, I imagine her as being the one to blame somehow. I cannot remember what she says to me I just say  Fuckyoufuckyoufuckyou I am hysterical with fear and confusion and trauma. I wait quite a while before fourth ring. The fourth one is him. I knew it would be. I put the phone down immediately. It rings a fifth time. I must hear what he has to say. I want to just hear his voice, if it has any empathy in it. Any understanding, or human feeling. I barely manage to grunt  Ja. He answers  What s with this  ja ? He sneers at me. His voice is condescending, and without any sympathy or consideration for what is happening. He knows what he has caused. All he can do is try and belittle me because I am upset. I put down the phone. Sixth ring. I answer it with:  Its been done. There s no going back. and put down the phone. It does not ring again. A day or so later the Sheriff of the court delivers the divorce papers to me from them. When I first see the police vehicle, I panic. Perhaps its his right wing cronies, racist South African Policemen. But my fear cools to relief, when I see a friendly black man get out of the car. I cannot help but tell the sheriff everything that has happened. He is very understanding and listens to me for sometime. He seems interested and genuinely sympathetic. But I am living in fear. What if her father has connections here and knows that I know what he has done, and is going to axe me next? The only way to stop that is to make as much noise as possible so that he will implicate himself if I  have an accident old South African style. The Sheriff s beautiful black face is unbelievably calming:  God won t let that happen. I am instantly at ease. Nonetheless I have ten days to respond or the divorce goes through. Everyone tells me that nearly all such attempts to refuse a divorce are ignored, as we have no children and are not married in community of property. She wants nothing of her stuff, and I am expected to leave her with what she has. The selfish git won t even bother sending for her stuff. He ll most likely get it insured and then stolen, as usual. He will pay 35 grand for a bogus course to extend her visa, even if she does not even attend the course, but won t pay a fraction of that for her personal belongings. He wants me to destroy them. It will cut the ties even more. There is no way that I can leave her under his influence, even though she will do everything he says, even divorce me out of pure fear at his unfeeling nature. But I cannot let it happen like this. I spend the next eight days writing my response to her: XX It goes like this: I, Jonathan Bain, reject every aspect of the divorce summons as it is one in a long list of frauds and crimes perpetuated by Pauline's father: David Herbst. Any agreement by her should be seen in the context of her father being someone without any moral fibre, ethical reasoning ability, or in fact very much intelligence and common sense. Ask her again once he has been behind bars for a year. She will lie to protect him. She is a loyal daughter. She would probably even die for him. She has a backbone, unlike him. I will prove this. But anyone who knows him, will not need proof. I know she loves me. Yet has been told she is not allowed to. And she knows what will happen to me if she disobeys him. I would give everything I own, to have her back. But that would not help, because the right thing has to be done for everyone, Dave too. Although he has made me angry beyond compare, I offer him no malice at all. Just an opportunity to get out of the hole he has dug them all into. But for that to happen, the truth must be told. I have to be an optimist because the truth is all I have. If fate would have it, that she is in such fear, that she will never see me again. If most of the worst of what I say here is not even true, just a fabrication of her tortured mind. Or, even a fabrication of only my tortured mind, or both, then, the New Zealand venture is still an act of fraud that is without doubt provable. So let me begin with the undeniable facts. The raw financial loss of this endevour. Owed to me: Half fiat Uno: R2500 (supposed to have been sold end of June) Laptop: R7000 (replacement) Rent Deposit R2500 (supposed to have recoverd March) Rent March-July R8000 (since alleged 'seperation') Monitor & Speakers R2000 (supposed to have been sold end of June) Owed for Student loan loan R1000 (2002) Borrowed for 'consultant' R2500 (In lieu of returning to Africa in March) SUB-TOTAL a): R25 500 CD: ASUS AGP V38 Value R12000 (replacement or the original CD) This sub-total consists of what is mine in New Zealand. In addition, the New Zealand venture was entirely fraudulent from beginning to end, and was in complete disregard of the social contract of our marriage. In fact the last 2 years have been for me one long endurance, of lies, manipulation, illegal acts beyond number, and most importantly, considerable acts of coercion, threat, hate-speech, and attempted corruption, all of which the prime motivator was most likely Pauline's father: David Herbst. There are therefore additional costs that I have had to bear, based on this complete disregard for any vague sense of ethics, or even common sense by her father's threatening manipulation. I hold Pauline responsible for none of this, as she is a little person, incapable of saying no to an overbearing father with a known violent history. Although she has suffered much in her life, I have never known her to show any grudge toward anyone. She is without malice. She is a stronger and better person than I, even if she has done worse things than I. If she is without feeling to me. No hatred at all. Just silence, then I also allege that the entire marriage was possibly also an act of fraud, with the prime intention of getting me to steal vast somes of money from my work as a financial computer programmer. Arranged in advance by Father and Daughter. The entire New Zealand escapade was certainly an act of fraud, riddled from beginning to end in lies, corruption, theft, manipulation, coercion, and that is only the parts that I noticed. Who knows what fire really burns at the bottom of this vast cloud of dirty smoke. The divorce claim is thus: 5.1 The parties are separated on 12 March 2004 and have lived separated since that date. Answer... False: We had an agreement that she would come back to South Africa before our 4th anniversary (1 July). She had therefore been using my money to pay for half the rent in New Zealand until after 1 July. This is not an act of "separation" in the marital sense. Dave coerced Pauline to break her promise to come back to Africa with me in March 2004, (she lost her airline ticket as a result - she has NEVER EVER given up an opportunity to travel EVER since i have known her: 9 years. She lives for travelling.) Then he coerced her to break the promise of returning to Africa if no immigration was cleared by end of June. Initially in 2003, the agreement was to stay for 3 months "to see". This was the first time that her promise of us returning was broken by her Father. The reason given was essentially racist. When I suggested we tour China instead, they could give no good reason why this was a problem. Again She made a Promise to return after 6 months (September), then November 2003, she demanded to spend Christmas with her family, and we would leave January 2004, same in February. In March we saw the consultant, I lent her R2000 to pay the snake on condition she promised to use her airline ticket which expired in March 2004. One year after our arrival. With tears in her eyes she told me she was not coming back with me. I could not argue. As you can see The lawyer purposefully used the word 'separated' in a deliberately ambiguous sense to imply that our love had ended at this point. I would charge that he is deliberately trying to defeat the ends of justice by doing this. If he is doing so because Dave Herbst has lied to him, or she has lied to him. I cannot blame him. We all know how he feels. Someone please show him the movie "Devil's Advocate" "...have lived separated..." is not grammatical, and so therefore cannot be legal, or anything more than deliberate ambiguity, and I will stake my entire academic record, with distinctions in linguistics, psychology, and the philosophy of ethics, on this claim. "The parties are separated on the 12th..." is not grammatical either. For the second time ambiguity around the word "separated". Once is a mistake. As this is Dave's lawyer, not Pauline's of course, I reject its authenticity completely. Nonetheless, I shall continue... 5.2 She wants to stay in NZ, i want to stay in SA. Answer... False: Her father will not let her come back to South Africa. I was prepared to live in NZ, but as the whole escapade was a complete crock of lies, theft and total nonsense, I would rather never see New Zealand again. Perhaps after a ethical shake-up. Pitcairn islands on a bugger scale. Dave has been using emotional blackmail to force his daughter to work illegally for the last two years, so she is not in any sense 'living' in New Zealand, She is a tourist, who has had her visa extended well beyond what we were told would happen, by the lying and corrupt and racist New Zealand government, who have not deported her because she is a very attractive white girl who they can make whore-tax off at a very profitable rate by frustrating her attempts to get viable legal employment while she is under threat from her student loan. How many other white South African girls are whoring themselves 'down under' to protect their parents ill-gotten gains? And the Eastern Europeans too? Asians? Zimbabweans? Full of it. A 'consultant' is being paid thousands to stamp a few passport books. He is an ex-immigration employee. Here in Africa we are honest, and call it a bribe, its illegal. In New Zealand, its a 'consultant'. Its legal. I also allege that her father would be allowed to stay despite all his crimes, if he could coerce her to get rid of incorruptible me. He is the worst misogynist I have ever encountered. To sell your own daughter as a whore to save your own crooked backside? I have LITERALLY been vomiting ALL DAY at the thought. Excuse me. I have to go puke again. Honestly, I have been physically puking at the thought of it all. And you must see the pretty new churches! With flashing neon lights! No brothels allowed within 2 blocks of a church. A New, New Zealand law. 5.3 She has lost love and affection for me. Answer... False: She has lost love and affection for everyone and everything because her father murdered her beloved grandfather, in a fit of jealously and greed. He stole the inheritance while on the run for avoiding his taxes too! And now he is hiding in New Zealand, behind the name and the skirts of his new wife. It fits the pattern. Dave's own grandfather was a nazi, as is Dave, but Charles never was. Pauline's grandmother could possibly also have died of mysterious circumstances, as her condition appeared to me like poisoning. When I said to Dave that she seemed sane half the time, then deranged the other half, he said: "If I ever get like any of those two, do me a favour, put me out of my misery." At this point Charles was of completely sane mind, although physically a bit unfit. I'll stake my entire university qualification on that as well. Charles' mind was clear as a whistle when Dave said that. Dave refused to discuss it. Let alone even discuss visiting them. I initially did not believe Pauline when she told me that they were murdered. That must have killed any respect she had for me. I did not believe her because she did not blame Dave. She blamed someone else, who I knew was not a killer. That s why I said to her "You are just traumatised. People die." She never forgave me for not believing her. That was my mistake. I have cried for days for that. Dave also has destroyed our marriage, out of jealousy and the inability to corrupt me into a racist misogynist lying cheating murdering wancer like him. Thank God. He promised me a work permit then tried to coerce me into working illegally on his construction site, because no one will work for him over there, because no one in New Zealand is desperate enough to put up with his racist, sexist, foul-mouthed small-minded insults. How can she say she has lost love for me (via Dad and lawyer), and yet claim that "the love is there - we just want different things" when speaking to me. ?? She also told me that this is not a matter of right and wrong. She is numb to the pain. Surely marriage is the very foundation of what is right? Surely its breakdown is the breakdown of society itself? The root of our problems? The quintessential essence of what is fundamentally wrong with society is that it spends more time and money on prostitution than anything else. Every whore is somebody's daughter. Someone's mother. Have a look at the internet sometime. She is some young guy's first time lover, you dirty bunch of cowardly Fcuking wancers. Pauline has never expressed any hatred or anger at me since we first discussed the possibility of divorce. The divorce paper was sent because I told Dave I would turn him in if he didn t start returning some of the cash owed to me. Thus it was sent as a result of my threat to him. No action on her part. And if it did, it was coercion. Emotional blackmail, physical threat. The additional costs are as follows: Promise of work permit (Flight) Value R12000 Promise of 3 month stay extended to July 2003, September, November, January, February, March, and the end of June 2004 Value R48000 Each promise was "If immigration is not sorted out by that date, we will return to Africa." SUB-TOTAL b): R60 000 As far as I can tell a marriage is a social contract, based on the keeping of promises. It has been violated so much, that the only love I have left for her is that of honourable love one has for a neighbour that is doing a terrible thing and the realisation that if you ignore it, it will get worse. In addition, Pauline's property has been looked after by my family for the last 2 years. He initially promised to send for it and pay for it to be shipped. He again broke this promise in August after the idea of divorce was first broached, and her stuff was "in your way" - his words. A person who has boxes and boxes of sentimental photography, her life s treasures, does not want nothing back from me. I live surrounded by her belongings and her life. The divorce says she wants none of it. I cannot believe that is true at all. Storage... Michael, 1 year Value R2400 Sixth Avenue Value R1000 1 Poseidon (20 weeks and counting) Value R6000 SUB-TOTAL c): R9 400 In additon, as a result of all this lying, coercion and cheating I have suffered a series of nervous breakdowns. These are impossible to quantify financially, but my work has certainly suffered as a result. Nervous breakdown #1: Undermining all my efforts to provide for her, refusing to acknowledge any of my domestic contribution, making breakfast and supper for her every day, cleaning after it, as well as paying for most of her extra expenses as well as about half of her daily living, as well as domestic servant once or twice a week. She considered my work for the municipality as 'not good enough'. Whilst living off of it. This was because my pay had been cut in half for the second time. Africa was never going to be good enough for her. "Are you going to be a municipal worker in PE for the rest of your life?" Nervous breakdown #2: From intense psycho-physical-sexual abuse, emotional blackmail, "swaart gevaar" tactics, about affirmative action, racist comments about the Michelle Cox case. (All inspired by her father) And yelling at me all day things like I must "hit her like all men hit all woman". When I am not moved, and point out that it was white racism that caused all of the above. Again I am called domineering and cheap because I say I cannot afford to go to New Zealand even to visit. Again "go on why not just hit me, prove you are a man who dominates me and decides my life for me. I am just a breeder to you, just your property." This culminated in one (1) gentle slap to the face from me, with my eyes closed, during a particularly loud and close tirade, less than 1 inch from my face. As a result I received hundreds of beatings, slaps, threats of law-suits, divorce, sexual taunting and days of "cold silence" followed by many temper tantrums, resulting in Nervous Breakdown #3: I phone my parents and ask them to please take me away as she has not stopped screaming and shouting at me for weeks. My parents calm it down, but by this stage I am broken. Eventually I agree to try New Zealand. Everything went back to 'normal' until New Zealand. Nervous Breakdown #4 Was a result of my pay being reduced to half for the third time (2003), just 3 months after I had been given my first raise since beginning work in 1998. (The raise was 20% on the hourly rate, my hours per month were cut in half which is technically a 40% reduction in net earnings per month.) Not initially her fault. But she used this against me as an excuse to try and fill my mind with racist hate speech. As did Dave and Karen. I am told by her "Your opinions don't count - you don't have an opinion" when I say "Please acknowledge my point of view at least, even if you do not agree with it." I was pointing out the reason given for the reduction in salary was that I was not in South Africa at the time, and was probably considered to be at risk of not completing my project. Again, the long stay in New Zealand, was a result of all the lies and deceit and broken promises, all precipitated by her father, David Herbst. There is the possiblity that I was scammed from the beginning, under the coercion of her father, in which case I cannot blame her, as he is a forceful bully who has no sense of right and wrong, (see "this is not a matter of right and wrong" -earlier) Both Dave and Karen at different times tried to convince me to take part in moving money out of South Africa illegally. And that I should rob Mandela Metro of its electricity takings, and put it in Pauline and my joint bank account. When I asked why I was being coerced into this joint bank account when we already had a joint one, and an individual one each, I was told by Dave "In case one of you dies, then there are no legal problems." Pauline was later told to open yet another bank account to use for her earnings as an illegal worker. My earnings as well as my inheritance were to be moved into the joint account. I resisted all efforts to do this. And there were many requests and they were very insistent. Dave, Karen and Pauline tried to convince me that it was to do with the economy, despite the Rand outperforming the NZ dollar. They also tried to tell me that the NZ economy was bigger than South Africa's. They kept insisting this even though I showed them newspaper articles and websites in flat contradiction. Dave kept imagining that the Rand was sliding, even though it performed better against the dollar than any other currency that year in the whole world. Scammed marriage: 2 years of half-keeping her Value R24000 Honeymoon Value R40000 SUB-TOTAL R64 000 I was in total forced through emotional blackmail (end of marriage) to be party to the following crimes: I must again point out, she was black-mailing me in response to similar psychological pressure from her father. 1. Smuggling of cash Pauline was coerced by her family to smuggle an undisclosed sum of cash into New Zealand for him. This was to help her "Uncle" - John. 2. Illegal work Pauline has been coerced to work illegally by her father at various menial jobs for the last 2 years. 3. Irregular passport renewel. On a 'regular' basis, via a well-paid 'consultant' who also happened to reside next door to the place Pauline 'luckily' obtained a job offer. A completely 'unconnected' event, I am expected to believe. Ha! 4. Offer of illegal labour I was expected to work as a labourer on Dave's construction site. 5. Assault Dave Assaulted Bryan and threw him out the house, then made him apologise to be let in again. All because he asked Dave quietly to not use crude language at his mother and sister. Bryan told me this. 6. Hate speech An incessant tirade thereof, most of it at invisible Africans. Both Karen and Dave. 7. Buying jobs On hold advertising. See comment about 'consultant'. 8. Buying jobs Jeff Bain-Jarmen (gave me the name of someone called 'Sharwood' or 'Sherwood'). A South African who 'helps other South Africans get jobs and work permits'. Some old school friend. 9. Murder x2 Details as above. 10. Fraud. My whole New Zealand experience. 11. Gross racism, complete cynical manipulation of 'immigrants' for material advantage, corruption and sex slavery: The New Zealand immigration department. 12. Being the worst Father-in-law i could possibly ever have imagined: Dave Herbst. This reply to the divorce I consider to be in no way confidential. Gossip freely. All my love, Jonathan Bain 24 November 2004 XXI I e-mail it to about 20 help-lines and abuse centres in New Zealand. Only two make a half-hearted response. They are only allowed to do anything unless the person being abused makes the call themselves. I respond by saying, so people who are in fear of their lives, and unable to do anything are just sacrificed? Neither of the first two to respond , bothers to answer this. What useless ineffective fools. I send it to some of our old friends. People are unsure. But I know the usual response to murder is for people to ignore it. I had been doing that for years!!! Now it was time for me to feel what she had felt. Everyone giving you condescending comments, like  put it all behind you. Sometimes the story comes out clear when I tell it, other times I try and say too much too soon, and it all comes out garbled. People must think I am nuts. But each time someone does not believe me, I can only feel how bad it must have been for her, when I did not believe her. Her husband and protector. Criminal Investigative Psychologist. Astute poet and philosopher. Unwilling to believe the truth because it is just too damn scary. I m such a useless coward& I send the response to my wife and my father-in-law, but I leave out the references to murder. I don t want to endanger her by letting him know that I know the worst of it. That way he will not retaliate too immediately. But they must know that the game is up. I try to contact lawyers online, but none will deal with a murder. Perhaps they think it s a scam e-mail? There is so much bollocks on the internet. Finally I find a lawyer by visiting in person. The day I visit the lawyer is perfect weather. She is open and responsive. She does not just dismiss what I say. She reminds me of the Sheriff. It much easier to explain myself to the professionals who deal with this sort of thing regularly. Lawyers get a bad name too often and too easily. It must be the most difficult job on earth. They must deal with all sorts of threats themselves. She points out an interesting observation on the Divorce summons that I had not noticed. It has been issued through the High Court. This is very unusual. Normally it goes through the rubber stamp of the magistrate. This means that they will most likely accept my refusal and it will go to trial. Hope. I had made the complaint to the tax website a day before the summons was sent. I mentioned the murder too. Did the person who issued the summons realise this, or was it because of the earlier custody issues? Had the judiciary known about the abuse she suffered as a child? Or was it to do with the tax story? Or both?? I phone saying, that I had no choice but to turn them in, that I love her father, and this is for the good of everyone. I e-mail her, but get no response. She does not realise about the murder, did not get the message on her phone initially, and it must look like I am taking out my frustration by turning them in. I try hinting by saying  Pray to your grandfather - he knows the truth. in an e-mail. Nothing. XXII November becomes December. One unpleasant day, I suddenly feel an urge to find my wedding ring. It had been months since I put it away somewhere. I suddenly start to panic. I have the strangest compulsive feeling that if I did not find and put my wedding ring on my finger immediately, all will be lost. I spend half an hour rummaging through everything, hundreds of boxes. Finally I find it and place it on my finger for few moments. We had designed our rings together, and had them made especially for us. They are unique and 100% original. I feel a bit silly at this strange urge, and put the ring away safely. Without thinking further on it, I immediately log on to the internet and the response to my rejection of the divorce arrives by e-mail: She tells me: Go away. You have ruined my life. I hate you. I wish I had never met you. I don t know where you get half of this crap from. You are psychotic. You are the only one to blame for the breakdown of the marriage, you already had your three warnings. You brought this on yourself. Three warnings? Goodness, how many times has she lied to me and broken countless promises that have ended up costing me years of my life. But its so easy to slip back into blaming her. That is what he wants. That is what he has been trying to do all along. But the ring? It seems more than coincidence that I had the urge to be reminded of how happy we both were when planning our wedding rings together. She still cannot know about the murder. Each day I had gone over all the details again and again. Racking my brain for some clue to his innocence. I don t want anyone to get hurt. She most likely will never love me again for what I have said, and yet, I feel I did the right thing. I may be wrong. I may end up looking like a fool. But I would rather look like a fool than foolishly ignore what every fibre in my body is telling me: My father-in-law has murdered at least three people. You brought this on yourself. Perhaps this is the clue that she understands the situation. It is what I told him when I turned him in. Its what his father had told him when the uncle had turned him in for the tax. Is this a reminder that she actually enjoyed that comment. I had emailed it to him, not her. Yet here she was repeating it back to me. At least I am consoled that she can only repeat what he said. And he repeats What I said. And I had repeated what her grandfather had said. Dizzy. I had been thinking and meditating on the issue for weeks, almost every day. I had talked about it to many people. The longer I explain the length of detail, the more people believe me. However, the ordinary people need much more convincing than the lawyers and sheriffs and such. I am truly impressed by the level of professional ethic on many South Africans in positions of Authority. Even in the short time I was in New Zealand the positive changes in the attitude of most South Africans is heart-warming. I had always had a cynical opinion of such people in the past. It was a cynical past. But that was then, the legacy of the old South Africa was not only apartheid. That was just one wicked branch of the corrupt tree. Oppression was universal. If the military and police had been commanded with their own human rights at heart, they would not have been oppressive. And most of the oppressors had left South Africa since the African National Congress took over government. Had he been running from what he had done in the army and police? He was a medic, in an oppressive state renowned for its biological weapons. If he had murdered his father, it would have been done at a distance, either poison or anthrax or some more common biological weapon. I return to www.google.com and search for topics relating to death from an enlarged heart. I need more. I think and ponder all the past five years. What other deaths had happened in the family. With a chill that leaves me in tears for another two days, I remember this conversation while mentioning the inheritance she was supposed to have given to her by him in New Zealand : I am thinking to myself at the time, surely there are other members in the family who are involved in the inheritance, who may have a say in where it is. So I say:  What became of old Auntie Anne? She had also lived on or near Charles property. Her answer:  Oh. She just died.  When?  Oh, Whenever& whatever& people just die. In the floods of tears that leave me bed-ridden for two days, I wonder to myself: Why had I not realised then? But the answer is simple. We don t want to make these realisations. We would always rather think positive and enjoy the good things in life. It easy to just avoid the shit. Ignore it. Don t think too much. And her sister or some near relative had died recently too. God. How many has he killed? No wonder he could do his own parents in without feeling. No wonder there was never a photo of the grandparents in New Zealand or Durban. No wonder they were never even mentioned. The only photo of their direct family on display was of him and her, together. At the wedding. In fact the only members of her family, her flesh and blood family that were at the wedding, were him and her. I question my family. He had not spoken to anyone at the whole wedding from my family. Only his next door neighbours were invited by him. Not one of his five brothers, two sisters, and any of their family or her cousins had even been invited. Except the grandparents who could not make it. She was allowed to invite them, because it was just a gesture. She knew they could not come. He tried to tell her not to invite them anyway. Tried just a little bit of spite. But she gave them their invites. We designed and printed them all ourselves. I find an old photo of him in his red beret in the boxes. The photo is a profile. It looks like half of his face may be burned or scrunched up. The side not facing the camera. But you can just see it still. He does not look in good shape, either way. My uncle bullied me a bit because he had a hot iron held to his head in the army. Blame the little uncle. Blame the one who can t fight back. The same way I had been blaming her for our marital problems. Instead of confronting him. We are all cowards. I cannot even hate him anymore. But I have to put things right. I at least have to try. He was a medic. He went in with the right idea. To help heal people. She used to have a nurses outfit as a child, she told me. I m a psychologist. We are all healers. Somewhere the medic had become the killer. The apartheid South African Defence force was notorious for its dirty tricks. It must be normal to become callous to death when you see it everyday. When you have to pack your buddies into body bags. I had known more than one army medic. None of them were whole on the inside. Who patches up the medic, when his soul becomes crippled? My birthday comes and goes without her. I always hated birthdays. They just always somehow suck. She knew this. But now, the pain just makes me more certain that the right thing must be done, that there is no way I can just  put it all behind me like everyone is saying. No way. I had earlier told her, somewhere in the midst of her silent rejection, that I never go numb. With me, its only love and war. And this, is still love. And it can still cut a whole lot deeper. XXIII Christmas cracks me. I cannot face it, instead I walk for 20 km. I give all my money away to poor people. I refuse to open or have anything to do with Christmas presents, despite my mother trying to give them to me. I can t face it. My wife loves presents. Christmas just brings the whole nightmare back. Loss. Emptiness. Loneliness. Murder. Patricide. Matricide. Psychopaths and Borderline personalities. All the vivid uncompromising detail of the truth in all its gore and bloody pointless hatred, spite, and greed and jealousy. Anger. I cannot keep it out my head, cannot distance it from myself and just enjoy Christmas with my family. This is worse than if she died, in some ways. At least in death there is closure and finality. Now, I can only imagine what Christmas has been for them. What I have done to them. Even if I had to make all those decisions over again, I would just have hoped to do it all sooner. Its not guilt though, its just sadness at the way it all is. Fated. Has to be like this. Where did I ever have a choice? Perhaps on a normal Christmas day, I will look back and make an extra effort to enjoy the day. It took 5 hours to walk 20 km, and the whole next day I have a migraine headache. That night I email the New Zealand immigration department and inform them that my wife is working illegally. I feel like a coward, turning her in, but it s the only way I can get her out. If I go back now, it won t work out, she will still be under his influence. For the rest of her life. He will break her down until she eventually& That was the day of the Tsunami. My trivial life seems so unimportant next to that, but as of the New Year, I start writing this story. Trivial or not, it is my life, and I will live it truthfully, honestly, and with authenticity. It s initially a cathartic artwork. Then, a legal defence, then it starts evolving into a master s degree. And finally, as there is no end in sight to the story, I will have to publish it as Online Reality Literature. The story must be told. In case something happens to me. I walk past a bookshop, and see a familiar cover. Her latest favourite reading. I have never met anyone read as quickly and as avidly as my wife. She consumes books like most people breath the air. The title with the beautiful cover is striking.  Kushiel s Dart . Just before I left New Zealand she had insisted that I read the book. I had tried. Despite being exquisitely written, the storyline was almost too painful to be aware of. Kushiel is an anguisant, a whore who feels no pain, living in a fantasy world that is riddled with war. She is hired out to the worst soldiers, demented masochists who enjoy inflicting sexual pain. But if she gives the key word, then her client must stop. Kushiel is the most desired of the anguisant. She has never needed to give the key word. She has never experienced pain that she cannot withstand. I could not read all the book. It was just too painful, made me feel sick. But she was sending a message. She had insisted that I read it, she was so incessant. But she had been giving me clues like this ever since we were together. Would tell me bits of information over and over again, repeat stories that she knew she had told me. Making sure I had known they were relevant. And the bits she had repeated echoed all the louder now. You don t know who you are dealing with. There are so many pieces of the puzzle still missing. Seeing the book Kushiel s Dart has shaken me. Made me realise how bad it all is. It will be impossible to  put this all behind me. Every time someone says that I can feel my blood boiling. I look through her boxes for clues. Its very difficult, as I am constantly reminded of my loss. I can only manage a half hour of looking before I break down into tears. But I don t turn them off. I let it bleed. It makes my love stronger. True love. For all. Even him. It probably looks like I am coping well from outside. And in truth, because I allow the tears to flow when they need to, I am able to keep in touch with my emotions, and with my memory. Nothing of this will get pushed into my subconscious. I will not become an unfeeling monster like he is. Like she is becoming, maybe already has become. Finally, I find another clue. Its an extract in her hand-writing. Something she wrote when in London: The Ravings of a Nutter:  Who are you - you re 4 people in one. A fashion exhibit. She is like that, C.J., isn t she? Oh God. Oh Christ. What am I about to do? I d sooner slit my wrists than&  I m sorry, sorry, I didn t mean to hurt you etc, etc, etc& When I was born my fairy God mama must have said:  And you sweet thing, your gift will be insanity - you can Make people mad, drive them bats, this will be your power. How else can I explain the general trend away? It should be my major selling point  Hi - be my friend - I guarantee an extended stay in the mental asylum of your choice. Comfy bouncy padded walls, free drugs, come on, How can you say no? Of course we all can exaggerate sometimes. We all say things like  I could kill you . It probably is normal to dodge a flying coffee-mug on your honeymoon, and watch it smash against the wall only inches from your nose. And I do hope that I am a normal 30 something going through a routine divorce. But hope as much as I want, and I may not have every single piece of the puzzle in place, but the picture has not changed significantly in my mind for 3 months now. Every day I can do little more than ponder it all, and write. Its not a pretty picture at all I am afraid. She had tried the S&M suggestions in the beginning, the whole key-word to stop thing. Perhaps I was to do such twisted things to her that she would own me through fear that they would be revealed. Perhaps the whole thing was a scam and she was just a porn-pawn. If so, then she wasn t supposed to fall in love with me. But I feel that she did. What had happened in London? Her father had found out she was  up to something dodgy, he just knew! She had been involved in taking money of immigrant by standing around in her underwear. She had only told me because she had confided in a friend who had threatened to tell me. I reread her literature. The Piltjinaer tales, and realise that the last of these short stories had been to heavy for me to finish reading. I thumb to the last story  Destiny and Decline . It s a twisted version of the dodgy stuff she got up to in London, before her Father found out and ordered her to go to University. With what intention? Its online You can read it here: http://www.otterit.co.za/PukPix/Piltjinaer/Destiny.htm Those half dozen or so visits to her grandparents that disposed of a good portion of my disposable income were an honour. He was a war veteran, like all of us in one way or another. But he joined 2 years earlier than he was allowed to, and was signed in by his uncle. Not, his own father-who-is-never-mentioned. Why? My own family went through awful internal feuds at this time, being part British, and part German. Her family had followed the same migration patterns as the German part of mine, from Germany to South-West-Africa-Namibia, then South Africa. A damn tough migration, with violence the chief means to survival. Charles had told me that members of his family had killed one another at the start of World War Two, but he did not say who it was at all. His father was said to have died at this time, if I remember correctly. And something had made such a big impression on him to join up at age 16. And his uncle had broken the law to allow him his choice. A big risk for him to take, and for what gain? Charles also had such a strong set of values that he was willing to risk his life to save the honour of a Zulu girl. Even today, few white men would do that. In those days, it was less likely. Especially as the previous generation had fought and killed the Zulus. The only guess I can make out of all of this is that he possibly killed, or played a role in killing his own father, for having Nazi values, the type of values that treated women as possessions., and members of other races as inferior. Charles had a vibrant liberal attitude and sensitive respect for everyone he spoke about. My wife s Father was a notorious racist and could easily justify his actions to kill Charles, based on the idea that he had done the same to his own Father. But this time the ideals were reversed. This time it s the Nazi who wins. And yet, even this text that I write is a symbolic attempt to repeat the pattern. My moral imperitive is without doubt guided by Charles spirit. The cricket bat I bought with his wedding present to me, lies next to me in my bed. Just in case I need something to protect. Something that will be guided from beyond the grave. And those of you who read this, those that are materialist and do not believe in life after death; you should still be able to understand this on a material level. Whenever my will wavers from my goal, I feel distraught, angry, frustrated, bitter. But when I read this text over and over again, making sure I have not missed any detail, making sure I have as much truth as I can find, then I feel resolute, and my mind is whole. My emotions are intact and authentic. Nothing elkse makes sense. For a week before the day I bowled the cricket ball at the wall. The day that the veil fell from my eyes, November 15th 2004. For that week, and the week thereafter, I woke up and went to bed, and most of the day contemplated a clear image in my mind s eye of Charles. He reminded me of Albert Einstein. Open soft eyes. I had told my wife through SMS that I kept seeing a picture of her grandfather in my mind, and that I could not understand why. I said this at least three times. She never responded to it. So when I left that message on her phone that said  I know your father killed your Grandfather , and still I got no answer, then that should have been reason enough to believe completely. But I am a scientist, and know that there is never 100% certainty. Always leave room for doubt. Always a 5% margin of error. But the only other possibility is that he had intent, motive and every reason to commit patricide, as he felt deprived and humiliated for having his daughter taken away from him. Now he could take revenge. But maybe, despite all this he did not do it. Perhaps he had an accomplice? There was the other brother in the business, as well as his new wife. Perhaps nature did perform the act he had wanted. Perhaps it was all just coincidence. Bur I don t think so. It is now nearly mid-February, she has not spoken to me in 3 months. But I can imagine how she feels. Frightened into silence. If she was not she would have told me to stop being ridiculous by now. But her father s lawyer has ordered her into silence. The first sign of legal guilt. Those who live by truth, speak openly, have nothing to fear. Have no lies to be caught out with. We embrace communication. We welcome being proved wrong, because it adds to our understanding and insight. The truth floats. There are so many details more than all this. The ex-boyfriend who coincidently also made a lot of money writing computer software, and who went completely nuts. He ended up ejaculating on some porn photographs and sending them to her father. The photos were of someone that  looked so much like me that my folks were unsure if it was or not. In the end they decided it was just someone that looked like her. The way in which casually her best friends mentioned that her father was the worst person in the world. Openly, in front of her, about a half dozen of us were there. It did not seem to phase her at all. The e-mail which claimed I had deserted her, and left her behind in New Zealand. When I visited her father s house for the first time, and asked for a cup of tea, she snapped  You know what a kitchen is, make it yourself. In her own house, she had been the perfect hostess. The way she told me that all her father s ex-girlfriends had been whores or worse. His latest was by far and away the nicest. The way she seemed to think that her father was really good at understanding law. While on the run from the South African Revenue Service. She had never been allowed animals growing up, so when she had the chance and acquired a fluffy stray cat, and her father visited, his comment was  I ll kill that thing. Her answer had been  Nonsense, you love her. When my brother had exchanged cars with us, at the time of the funeral, he reported that her father had made some derisive comments about me. Couldn t remember exactly, but  he definitely had it in for you. The way her father had tried to convince me that he had this special formula for gambling that just could not lose! The way she had flipped her lid when her real mother had examined her cat s kittens with a cigarette in hand. She had been thrown out the house, told never to return, and in fact we never saw her again. When we first arrived in New Zealand and had gone out to eat, we had squeezed into a car illegally. Her father had said with a big grin on his face  Here it s the passenger that pays his own fine in overloading situations. I had walked into a room, before they left for New Zealand, and I overheard her Father s new wife (then girlfriend) saying:  See I told you Lianna was not your friend. Then they had noticed me, and all looked about as sheepish as prospective New Zealander s can. Lianna was her longest friend. Again I walked into a conversation I was not supposed to. This time in New Zealand. They were discussing our immigration situation. I had not been invited to join the conversation, and when I entered the room, the conversation died down, and was changed to something else. He had said to me on arrival:  You don t ever need to go back to Africa. You can both let your tickets fall away. Like I will never want to see my family again? The neighbour of his who had taken the photos of our wedding  as a wedding present , then asked us for 500 bucks afterwards when we wanted the negatives, because the wedding album had cost so much. He had not seen this as wrong. She was obviously returning his sense of ethics to him, as he had actually paid the money in the end. The way he said he aimed at hedgehogs in the road, intending to squash them. The he smiled. The way he does not even try and hide his lack of emotion or empathy. Eventually he had been instructed not to call black people kaffirs as they were friends of hers, and also her research subjects. He had referred to all black people as  research subjects from then on, making the quotes with his fingers in typically sarcastic way. The way she broke contact with all her friends in South Africa, even the ones she had grown up with. I could go on and on for quite a while like this, but the problems have been exacerbated by the blatantly corrupt New Zealand immigration department. Since July, 9 months ago, I have made 8 attempts to get my wife deported on the basis that she has been working illegally. I have had nothing but the standard  It will be attended to response. While in New Zealand, the press had made a big song and dance about deporting a Sri Lankan rape victim who had fled her home with her grandmother. It had resulted in the head of immigration losing her job, as far as I remember. There are constant reports in the press of how inept the social services system is in New Zealand. I only received two one liners in response to my 20 requests to various agencies reputedly experts in family violence, bullying and intimidation. They even had someone promoted to a top police job, only to find that he had numerous gang-rape charges laid against him. All of them had been swept under the table. Him and his brave comrades had committed the gang-rape using a police baton. Serve and protect, is the motto. My guess is that because my wife is white-skinned, young, without kids, and damn good-looking. And because she has tattoos and piercing, she is seen as a potential victim for their newly legalized prostitution business. Borderline Personality Disorder victim, prime candidate for a whore. Either that or her father s bribes are keeping her there. Or both. The racism and sexism is so blatant, they don t even bother to respond to my threat to expose their one-sided immigration laws to the international media. Perhaps the corruption runs so deep that it does not matter? My reports had been not only to the immigration department, the head and the deputy head, but also the two political parties most up in arms over immigration. The Nationalists, and New Zealand First. The latter political party seems to have no other agenda, but to stop immigration. Obviously they don t mean white immigration. Nuff said. I have had no response. XXIV Its been nearly a year since I last saw my beautiful wife. Since she bit my lips off at the airport. Since she would not let me go, even though my flight had been called for final boarding. Since she tried to persuade me to let my air-ticket fall away and just not go back to Africa to see my family. A five year relationship, that seemed to just vanish after 2 months. No kiss will ever match that one at the airport. I could feel the bruising for a week afterward. It was the last time I touched truth. Now all I have is words. And the words echo. My life has become an echo of the past, as the broken bits of love drift past my mind. I do not hate him. I am trained not to hate, when I can instead have understanding, and ultimately healing. But instead of hate I have to diagnose him clinically. I dig through my old psychology textbooks. Both their personalities are such perfect text book cases, that I know what I am looking for. It takes surprisingly little time to make a diagnosis, now that I have considered every part of what I know. The www makes it much easier still. The difficult part was to face each painful fact, and record it, word for word. To read it over and over again in the editing process. Feel every inch of her pain, his lack of pain, her love for him, his lack of love for anything. The first draft had been 25000 words of hand written text. It took just three days to write. It has taken more than a month to type it, edit it, and fill in the missing details, much of which I had forgotten about. Its easy to forget pain. Easy to remember love. Well for me its like that anyway. Here is my diagnosis: Wife: Borderline Personality Disorder. The following extracts have been taken from these online sources: http://www.stanford.edu/~corelli/borderline.html http://www.nimh.nih.gov/publicat/bpd.cfm http://www.palace.net/~llama/psych/bpd.html All indented text is to be considered as a quote from these sources. To find the text in its original context, just enter it as a google search. I have made some phrases bold and underlined to highlight some issues. A person with a borderline personality disorder often experiences a repetitive pattern of disorganization and instability in self-image, mood, behavior and close personal relationships. This can cause significant distress or impairment in friendships and work. A person with this disorder can often be bright and intelligent, and appear warm, friendly and competent. They sometimes can maintain this appearance for a number of years until their defense structure crumbles, usually around a stressful situation like the breakup of a romantic relationship or the death of a parent. The increased frequency of borderline disorders among women may also be a consequence of the greater incidence of incestuous experiences during their childhood. This is believed to occur ten times more often in women than in men, with estimates running to up to one-fourth of all women. This chronic or periodic victimization and sometimes brutalization can later result in impaired relationships and mistrust of men and excessive preoccupation with sexuality, sexual promiscuity, inhibitions, deep-seated depression and a seriously damaged self-image. There may be an innate predisposition to this disorder in some people. Because of this there may ensue subsequent failures in development in the relationship between mother and infant particularly during the separation and identity-forming phases of childhood. Relationships with others are intense but stormy and unstable with marked shifts of feelings and difficulties in maintaining intimate, close connections. The person may manipulate others and often has difficulty with trusting others. There is also emotional instability with marked and frequent shifts to an empty lonely depression or to irritability and anxiety. There may be unpredictable and impulsive behavior which might include excessive spending, promiscuity, gambling, drug or alcohol abuse, shoplifting, overeating or physically self-damaging actions such as suicide gestures. The person may show inappropriate and intense anger or rage with temper tantrums, constant brooding and resentment, feelings of deprivation, and a loss of control or fear of loss of control over angry feelings. There are also identity disturbances with confusion and uncertainty about self-identity, sexuality, life goals and values, career choices, friendships. There is a deep-seated feeling that one is flawed, defective, damaged or bad in some way, with a tendency to go to extremes in thinking, feeling or behavior. Under extreme stress or in severe cases there can be brief psychotic episodes with loss of contact with reality or bizarre behavior or symptoms. Even in less severe instances, there is often significant disruption of relationships and work performance. & they were raised in environments in which their beliefs about themselves and their environment were continually devalued and invalidated. These factors combine to create adults who are uncertain of the truth of their own feelings and who are confronted by three basic dialectics they have failed to master (and thus rush frantically from pole to pole of): vulnerability vs invalidation active passivity (tendency to be passive when confronted with a problem and actively seek a rescuer) vs apparent competence (appearing to be capable when in reality internally things are falling apart) unremitting crises vs inhibited grief. Kernberg believes that borderlines are distinguished from neurotics by the presence of "primitive defenses." Chief among these is splitting, in which a person or thing is seen as all good or all bad. Note that something which is all good one day can be all bad the next, which is related to another symptom: borderlines have problems with object constancy in people -- they read each action of people in their lives as if there were no prior context; they don't have a sense of continuity and consistency about people and things in their lives. They have a hard time experiencing an absent loved one as a loving presence in their minds. They also have difficulty seeing all of the actions taken by a person over a period of time as part of an integrated whole, and tend instead to analyze individual actions in an attempt to divine their individual meanings. People are defined by how they lasted interacted with the borderline. & projection of unpleasant characteristics in the self onto others and projective identification, a process where the borderline tries to elicit in others the feelings s/he is having. Alternating clinging and distancing behaviors (I Hate You, Don't Leave Me). Sometimes you want to be close to someone. But when you get close it feels TOO close and you feel like you have to get some space. This happens often. Great difficulty trusting people and themselves. Early trust may have been shattered by people who were close to you. Sensitivity to criticism or rejection. Feeling of "needing" someone else to survive Heavy need for affection and reassurance Some people with BPD may have an unusually high degree of interpersonal sensitivity, insight and empathy. People with BPD are often bright, witty, funny, life of the party. They may have problems with object constancy. When a person leaves (even temporarily), they may have a problem recreating or remembering feelings of love that were present between themselves and the other. Often, BPD patients want to keep something belonging to the loved one around during separations. They frequently have difficulty tolerating aloneness, even for short periods of time. Their lives may be a chaotic landscape of job losses, interrupted educational pursuits, broken engagements, hospitalizations. Many have a background of childhood physical, sexual, or emotional abuse or physical/emotional neglect. & their attitudes towards family, friends, and loved ones may suddenly shift from idealization (great admiration and love) to devaluation (intense anger and dislike). Thus, they may form an immediate attachment and idealize the other person, but when a slight separation or conflict occurs, they switch unexpectedly to the other extreme and angrily accuse the other person of not caring for them at all. Even with family members, individuals with BPD are highly sensitive to rejection, reacting with anger and distress to such mild separations as a vacation, a business trip, or a sudden change in plans. These fears of abandonment seem to be related to difficulties feeling emotionally connected to important persons when they are physically absent, leaving the individual with BPD feeling lost and perhaps worthless many, but not all individuals with BPD report a history of abuse, neglect, or separation as young children.8 Forty to 71 percent of BPD patients report having been sexually abused, usually by a non-caregiver.9 Researchers believe that BPD results from a combination of individual vulnerability to environmental stress, neglect or abuse as young children, and a series of events that trigger the onset of the disorder as young adults. Adults with BPD are also considerably more likely to be the victim of violence, including rape and other crimes. Father-in-law: Organised Psychopath. Internet sources: http://faculty.ncwc.edu/toconnor/428/428lect16.htm http://www.geocities.com/lycium7/psychopathy.html Psychopathy is a concept subject to much debate, but is usually defined as a constellation of affective, interpersonal, and behavioral characteristics including egocentricity; impulsivity; irresponsibility; shallow emotions; lack of empathy, guilt, or remorse; pathological lying; manipulativeness; and the persistent violation of social norms and expectations (Cleckley 1976; Hare 1993). The crimes of psychopaths are usually stone-cold, remorseless killings for no apparent reason. They cold-bloodedly take what they want and do as they please without the slightest sense of guilt or regret. In many ways, they are natural-born intraspecies predators who satisfy their lust for power and control by charm, manipulation, intimidation, and violence. While almost all societies would regard them as criminals (the exception being frontier or warlike societies where they might become heroes, patriots, or leaders), it's important to distinguish their behavior from criminal behavior. As a common axiom goes in psychology, MOST PSYCHOPATHS ARE ANTISOCIAL PERSONALITIES BUT NOT ALL ANTISOCIAL PERSONALITIES ARE PSYCHOPATHS. This is because APD is defined mainly by behaviors (Factor 2 antisocial behaviors) and doesn't tap the affective/interpersonal dimensions (Factor 1 core psychopathic features, narcissism) of psychopathy. Further, criminals and APDs tend to "age out" of crime; psychopaths do not, and are at high risk of recidivism. Psychopaths love to intellectualize in treatment with their half-baked understanding of rules. List of Common Psychopathic Traits Glib and superficial charm; Grandiose sense of self-worth; Need for stimulation; Pathological lying; Conning and manipulativeness; Lack of remorse or guilt; Shallow affect; Callousness and lack of empathy; Parasitic lifestyle; Poor behavioral controls; Promiscuous sexual behavior; Early behavior problems; Lack of realistic, long-term goals; Impulsivity; Irresponsibility; Failure to accept responsibility for own actions; Many short-term marital relationships; Juvenile delinquency; Revocation of conditional release; Criminal versatility In addition to these most well-known types, there have been criminologists who have put forward additional constructs. They are only mentioned here because of their relevance to serial criminals, and the interesting similarity in the way they compare to the FBI's "disorganized - organized" typology. Psychopaths cannot be understood in terms of antisocial rearing or development. They are simply morally depraved individuals who represent the "monsters" in our society. They are unstoppable and untreatable predators whose violence is planned, purposeful and emotionless. The violence continues until it reaches a plateau at age 50 or so, then tapers off. Their emotionlessness reflects a detached, fearless, and possibly dissociated state, revealing a lower autonomic nervous system and lack of anxiety. It's difficult to say what motivates them - control and dominance possibly - since their life history will usually show no bonds with others nor much rhyme to their reason (other than the planning of violence). They tend to operate with a grandiose demeanor, an attitude of entitlement, an insatiable appetite, and a tendency toward sadism. Fearlessness is probably the prototypical (core) characteristic (the low-fear hypothesis). It's helpful to think of them as high-speed vehicles with ineffective brakes. Certain organic (brain) disorders and hormonal imbalances mimic the state of mind of a psychopath. In truth, psychopathy knows no boundaries. First of all, it is found among all social classes. Such character disordered people are not only the charming con men and dangerous gold diggers that Dr. Hare warns us about, not only are they the lower-class, drunken, drug abusing "sociopaths" which Dr. Black writes about, they are also people who hold high positions in society, as Jungian author Guggenbuhl-Craig has said, because those who cannot love want power. Some may disagree, but it has been well known that the socially adept psychopath, while his personal life may lie in disarray, is not incapable of reaching the heights of power (Hitler was a very good example of this). Hervey Cleckley also wrote about the socially adept psychopath in great detail. Myself: Depression. If you have managed to read this far, you will not require any further reason for this particular diagnosis. But hey, on the upside, at least I ve finally managed to get my topic for the Masters Degree in Psychology together! Its true I have suffered, but its also true what they say. That which does not kill you makes you stronger. Whatever I have suffered, it is a fraction of that which she has suffered. And him? Do people like that actually have emotions to suffer from? Honestly, I do not know the answer to that question. But I hope he does. Emotions are the nexus of what we are, they are the motivation in all that we do. Anyone without them is just missing out on the best part of being a human. Because if my love and I are ever united, I could not imagine a more perfect feeling. Jonathan Bain Email: Jon@poseidons.net 12 February 2005 EPISODIC AGGRESSION AND SOCIOPATHY COMPARED Disorganized Episodic Aggression: Organized Sociopathic Hatred: Ritualistic behavior Superficial charm and "good" intelligence Attempts to conceal mental instability Absence of delusions and other signs of irrational behavior Compulsivity Absence of "nervousness" or psychoneurotic manifestations Periodic search for help unreliability Severe memory disorders and an inability to tell the truth untruthfulness and insincerity Suicidal tendencies lack of remorse or shame History of committing assault inadequately motivated antisocial behavior Hypersexuality and abnormal sexual behavior poor judgment and failure to learn by experience Head injuries; injuries suffered at birth pathological egocentricity and incapacity for love History of chronic drug or alcohol abuse general poverty in major affective reactions Parents with history of chronic drug or alcohol abuse specific loss of insight Victim of childhood physical or mental abuse unresponsiveness in general interpersonal relations Result of an unwanted pregnancy fantastic and uninviting behavior with and sometimes without drink Product of a difficult gestation for mother suicide rarely carried out Unhappiness in childhood resulted in inability to find happiness sex life impersonal, trivial, and poorly integrated Extraordinary cruelty to animals failure to follow any life plan Attraction to arson without homicidal interest Symptoms of neurological impairment Evidence of genetic disorder Biochemical symptoms Feelings of powerlessness and inadequacy ion of that which she has suffered. 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