They Thought I Was Dead: Sandy’s Story

64 Autumn 2011

Schloss Leichtigkeit was just about the weirdest damned place — in a kind of good way — I’d ever seen in my life. The approach road was a steep lane, not much wider than our rental car, hemmed in on either side by tall leafy trees that blocked out almost all the daylight. We drove literally through the bottom of a medieval tower and carried on uphill. Finally, rounding a bend, a truly extraordinary building came into sight.

I guess if Bruno had been a bit older he would have thought we were arriving at Hogwarts and he was going to train to be a wizard. And if he had been older still, he might have thought he was Van Helsing arriving at Dracula’s castle.

‘Wow!’ Bruno exclaimed. ‘Is this where we’re going, Mama?’

We drove between two ornate pillars, on each of which was a large white sign with black lettering proclaiming, one in German and the other in English, THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF FREE SPIRITS.

Then a long, cobbled drive led us to the imposing front entrance of the building. In a similar style to the tower and just as old, a vast Bavarian castle rose above us. Tall, with grey stones and red pantiles, many of the windows were just narrow slits, and there were turrets randomly protruding along the battlements. And there was an utterly breathtaking view for miles, of mostly forestry, with some farmland, and in the far distance the soft contours of hills fading into the heat haze.

Several vehicles were parked on the forecourt of the schloss — a line of six dark grey people carriers all in a neat row, and a handful of small, indistinct cars. It had the institutional feel of an expensive hotel or a conference centre.

As I got out of the car and unclipped Bruno from the child seat in the rear, a tall, slim woman of around forty emerged from the front door. She was dressed elegantly but clinically, all in white, including spotless trainers, in what looked to me like lab technician overalls reimagined by a cool fashion designer — someone like Gaultier. Her fair hair was pinned back, and she was holding a clipboard. There was something about her that I would have called posh back in England. She wasn’t beautiful but she looked quite aristocratic, imposing.

‘Sandra Jones?’ she asked.

I saw, pinned above the breast pocket of her top, a small badge that read, Dr Schmitt, Mentor.

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘We are very happy to welcome you here. My name is Julia Schmitt. I will be your Spiritual Mentor throughout your duration with us.’ She spoke such perfect English I could only detect the very faintest hint of a German accent.

‘Nice to meet you, doctor... er, Julia,’ I said.

In truth, I was feeling a little intimidated by her. And I seriously did not like the pretentiousness of her moniker, Spiritual Mentor. Also, she smelled of something intense. A scent I recalled but momentarily could not place. For some reason it reminded me of the smell of a health food store. Then I remembered, patchouli oil.

‘And this is your son, Bruno?’

Bruno was staring up at the building. ‘Do you have ghosts?’ he asked her.

She indulged him with a smile. She gave the impression there was absolutely nothing you could say to her to which she would not reply with a smile. ‘Would you like to see a ghost, Bruno? Ja?’

He shrugged. ‘They don’t frighten me. I would actually quite like to meet one.’

‘Well, I’ve never seen one here in five years. But would you like me to try to arrange it?’

He looked at her for some moments. ‘I wouldn’t want to be too scared,’ he replied.

She looked at me and smiled, then said, ‘Can I give help to you with your bags?’

‘We’re fine,’ I said. ‘Thank you, we can manage.’

‘OK,’ she said. ‘Gut, alles ist klar!’ Then she stopped, and I knew something was coming, but I totally was not expecting what did come.

‘Sandra, I’d like it for you, Bruno and I to join hands in our welcome to you here. Let us bow our heads and close our eyes to say the welcome prayer before we enter the sanctum. Ja?’

I frowned when she said the word sanctum, but she didn’t see, fortunately. Sanctum, I thought. Really?

I looked at Bruno, his fair hair neat across his forehead and his wide blue eyes, and I could swear I saw something that matched exactly my own feeling at that moment.

I’m sure he was also thinking, really?

The prayer was interminable. It wasn’t religious in any monotheistic sense. It was a prayer to the world, to allow everyone who entered the portals of the International Association of Free Spirits to embrace the love, the community, the mission. To be refreshed, healed, reborn, realigned. To be set free of all our pasts.

Afterwards, as we followed her through automatic glass doors into a vast, high-ceilinged atrium, the contrast with the traditional, historic facade of the castle could not have been greater. It was as if we had walked onto the set of a sci-fi movie in a studio sound stage.

It felt like some kind of futuristic vision of Heaven. Everything was white. Everything. The floor, walls, ceiling, furniture. Even the vast numbers of real flowers, in giant white vases, were white. And there was a distinct, very pleasant and strangely calming scent from diffusers on just about every surface. The effect, for me anyway, in my strung-out state, was ethereal and slightly disorienting. As if Bruno and I had entered some kind of alternative universe.

The walls were hung with abstract paintings, all white on white, and framed ditzy new-age quotes in the spaces in between. I glanced at a few, while Bruno just stared around in awe, momentarily lost for words, which was pleasantly unusual for him.

I will form good habits and become their slave.

If you feel like you are losing everything, remember that trees lose their leaves every year, and they still stand tall and wait for better days to come.

The ship is safest in the harbour, but that’s not where it’s meant to be.

He who fears he shall suffer, already suffers what he fears.

There were several clusters of armchairs and sofas, as you’d see in the foyer of a large hotel, most of them occupied by people all dressed in similar white outfits to Julia, some talking, some sitting in apparent silent reflection.

I was starting to feel very uneasy — I’m not sure how much of that was down to this place, how much was tiredness from two days of driving, and how much was because my latest fix of methadone was wearing off and I was now incredibly anxious. I had only one day’s supply left. What had I imagined would be here? Drug Dealers Central?

None of the people we walked past — and the majority of them looked young and beautiful, some almost intimidatingly beautiful — looked as if they had ever touched either alcohol or any forbidden substance in their lives. But everyone with whom I made any eye contact smiled and mouthed something at me I could not hear. It might have been my imagination but they all seemed to be mouthing I love you.

Almost before I realized it, we had entered a small, equally white office. Julia Schmitt sat across a glass desk from us and passed me an iPad on which there was a medical form. I spent the next few minutes filling first my medical background — hesitating when drugs came up and deciding what the hell, to be truthful. Then I filled in Bruno’s form, which was a relative breeze, while he sat beside me, his tiny hand on my knee.

I saw the frown on Dr Schmitt’s face as she evidently read my opiate addiction and my weekly consumption of alcohol. But it was fleeting and then she smiled, yet again, seemingly unjudgemental, as if half the guests who registered here put down on their forms that they were substance abusers. Maybe they were.

‘OK, Sandra, Dr Waldinger will be able to speak to you about any issues and requirements you have.’

That made me feel a lot easier.

She passed me a registration form to fill in for Bruno and myself, which I dutifully did. When I reached the bit about car licence plate, I told her it was a rental and I needed to take it to one of the returns depots in Munich. She said not to worry and that someone would take care of it if I gave her the keys.

But then came her double-whammy.

She produced a machine from behind the desk. ‘May I take a credit card imprint, please, Sandra?’

I looked at her, astonished. ‘Credit card?’

‘It is normal — for all extras.’ Then she gave a rather odd, knowing look. ‘I think you will have some quite expensive extras?’

‘Yes, of course,’ I said, replying quickly before Bruno asked anything awkward.

‘And for your suite.’

I suddenly felt clammy. ‘For my suite?’

‘Yes, the Höchster Meister has put you in our very finest suite. The Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel suite. You will find such peace there, it is the perfect place to begin your regeneration.’

I stared back at her, momentarily at a loss of what to say. When I’d spoken on the phone, last week, to Hans-Jürgen Waldinger, calling him on the number he’d given me if I ever needed to contact him, telling him I needed to get away from his friend, Nicos — as he had once warned me I might — he had been utterly charming and so kind. He immediately told me to come and stay, as his guest, for as long as I needed. And I had felt again that strong connection with him I had felt four years ago, when I first met him at the Scientologists’ HQ.

Now I was being asked for a credit card. Had he omitted to tell me I would be a paying guest?

There was no way I could give a credit card. I only had one, that Nicos had given me, for the Santander Bank in Jersey, but the moment I used that I would be traceable.

‘Höchster Meister?’ I queried.

‘Dr Waldinger,’ she replied and smiled again.

‘I don’t have a credit card,’ I told her and she looked at me very strangely and suddenly broke into German. ‘Keine kreditcarte?’ Then she smiled again.

‘How much is the room?’

‘One thousand euros a day, full-board, for you and your son, which will cover his daily nursery school attendances,’ she replied, frowning before once again smiling. I was starting to find her smile disconcerting.

‘I... I understood we are here as guests of Dr Waldinger. Is it possible to speak to him?’ I asked.

She glanced at her watch. I checked on my own and saw it was coming up to 2 p.m. She shook her head. ‘The Höchster Meister meditates every day between 1 and 3 p.m. It is not possible to speak to him.’ It wasn’t my imagination, there was a definite frostiness in her tone now. Despite yet another smile.

‘You see,’ I said, aware how lame I was sounding, ‘I thought my son and I were here as guests of Dr Waldinger — your... your Höchster Meister.’

‘It is correct, you are both here as guests of the Höchster Meister,’ she replied. ‘But I do not understand your issue, exactly.’

‘I... I thought — being a guest — that meant we didn’t need to pay.’

Her eyes narrowed, and I noticed she had stencilled eyebrows, which now almost met on the bridge of her nose. As she spoke she opened her arms expansively. ‘Sandra, everyone here is a guest of the Höchster Meister. This institute only exists because of his immense generosity, but if no one ever paid that would not be good, that would mean everyone who came here was taking advantage of his kindness and his vision. But,’ she raised a finger, ‘there is something else even more important. And this is a point Dr Waldinger makes repeatedly.’ She smiled again. Her expression read, simples. ‘If something is free, then it is meaningless. Worthless. You do not perceive value. Do you understand?’

I didn’t, but I was starting to get jittery as the effects of the methadone were wearing off faster and faster with every minute. So I dug my hand into my bag and produced one bundle of fifty-pound notes held together by a red elastic band, peeled off £5,000 and handed them to her. ‘Payment in advance for five days,’ I said.

She scribbled a receipt and handed it to me. ‘We go to your suite?’ she asked. ‘Later I give you the familiarization tour.’ Then she smiled again.