They Thought I Was Dead: Sandy’s Story

65 Autumn 2011

It’s strange how quickly you can go on and then off someone. My first impression of Julia Schmitt, in the car park of Schloss Leichtigkeit, was of a nice lady, if a little indoctrinated. And smelling a little too wholesome.

But now, as our Spiritual Mentor led us up two steep flights of a narrow, stone spiral staircase, I was already going off her, big time. Was she being fiercely protective of Hans-Jürgen because everyone here wanted and expected a piece of him, or did she have another reason?

My addled mind was already speculating wildly. Were they lovers? Or was she hoping they would become lovers and she was jealous of my arrival here?

My problem in these recent past years was being able to think with proper clarity. Some days I struggled just to function properly, a hostage of the drugs to treat my opioid addiction, while trying to be a caring and protective mother and give out a semblance of being a normal human being, a thirty-two-year-old woman.

Had I completely misinterpreted Hans-Jürgen when I’d met him previously in England? When he had seemed so interested in my life and well-being?

Julia Schmitt was speaking and I realized I wasn’t listening and had missed the first part of whatever she’d said. ‘Complete mental regeneration,’ she went on. ‘That really is what everyone who comes here seeks and finds, if they are to look hard enough.’

Once, I would have bounded up these steps, but I hadn’t done much aerobic exercise in months. As I struggled to keep up with her, lugging my two suitcases and my handbag, regretting not letting her take one of them, and getting increasingly out of breath, I grunted a reply. ‘I think my body needs regeneration first!’

But my attempt at humour was lost on her. Or maybe she didn’t hear it. ‘Our Höchster Meister is very happy you are here,’ she continued, stopping finally on a small landing, with a narrow window slit. ‘He will see us soon.’

Julia put Bruno’s Trunki down and he peered excitedly through the slit at the view beyond. ‘Wow!’

‘Please tell Dr Waldinger we are happy to be here and look forward to seeing him soon, too.’

Julia opened a door with what looked like a pass-key and frowned. ‘Bitte — sorry — please, he does not use this name any more. You must not. Here he is always Höchster Meister.’

I was tired and feeling more than a little fractious after the very long two-day drive to get here, as well having had a lousy night’s sleep in a hotel last night with a rock-hard mattress and even harder pillow, sharing the room with Bruno, who took hours to settle down. ‘So how does that translate?’ I asked. ‘Hans-Jürgen Waldinger is now Mr Big?’

She looked at me without a trace of humour in her expression. ‘He is Höchster Meister. That is how we all address him. It is respectful.’

I looked directly back at her. ‘Of course it is.’

She ushered us through into a suite, the likes of which I had never seen before. Bruno ran around excitedly, from his little bedroom into the lounge, into my vast room and then into the bathroom with its twin basins, bath, shower and bidet.

But I could barely take it in. I was starting to feel even more anxious. Next to no methadone left. Unless someone has been dependent on opiates, like me, they have no idea how it feels to be in need of a fix. Back in our early days together, when I’d really thought he loved me, Nicos had asked me to describe the feeling of needing a heroin fix. I’d told him the truth. That it felt like being in a very dark place, where all the lights had gone out. A place where you were all alone in darkness that was populated entirely with your demons.

I’d been there before and didn’t ever want to go back there again.

‘And this is the temperature control,’ our Spiritual Mentor said.

I realized she was showing us around the suite and I had again missed something she had said. I heard a beep-beep-beep as she jabbed the little device on the wall. ‘This is to make it cooler and this to make it warmer.’ Beep-beep-beep.

‘Where’s the minibar?’ I asked.

And immediately wished I’d been holding a camera to capture her shocked expression.

‘Minibar?’ she said.

I nodded. ‘Yes, minibar.’

‘There is a minibar in the kitchen area.’

I was in there almost before she had finished speaking. It was next to the fridge and I pulled it open. All it contained, to my dismay, were chocolate bars and bottles of mineral water, all labelled Schloss Leichtigkeit Wasser.

I checked out the fridge. It was empty.

Shit.

‘How do I order wine or vodka or anything?’ I asked.

‘Schloss Leichtigkeit has a zero-alcohol policy,’ she replied. And smiled.

‘Seriously?’

‘This is one thing you will learn here, Sandra,’ she said. Her voice was zealous rather than judgemental. ‘To become a Free Spirit is to be like a flame in the wind. But not one that is attached to the wick of a candle or the head of a matchstick. Because if you need a crutch to survive, when that crutch is gone so are you. Extinguished. Yes?’

I frowned, unsure exactly what she meant.

‘Here at Schloss Leichtigkeit you will learn to become a flame that burns brightly alone, without fuel, without any external attachment or dependence. You alone will be that flame and when you graduate, you will for all your life burn brightly from just what is inside you. You will find yourself in a place of happiness and fulfilment that you never before found. You will know yourself for the first time, and what you will know will empower you in a way you would have thought impossible before you came.’

‘OK,’ I said, and was distracted by the sight of a thick, white brochure neatly placed on the desk in the living room. On the front cover was a photograph of Hans-Jürgen Waldinger, looking very much as I had remembered him, if a little younger in this picture. Some clever backlighting created a glow that gave him the appearance of a messianic guru.

It wasn’t the first time in four years that I’d seen his face, of course. I’d googled him often, at times feeling like some kind of a fangirl stalker. And each time, such as I felt now, just as every infatuated stalker feels, those penetrating eyes were looking at me. Only me.

So close now. So many emotions whirling around inside me. Would we pick up straight where we had left off, that closeness and connection I’d felt with him back at the Scientologists? Or—

Bruno, seated on a sofa and focused on his game, brought me back to reality by suddenly calling out, ‘Mama, what’s the Wi-Fi code?’

I looked at our Spiritual Mentor. She smiled again. ‘We have a zero Wi-Fi policy at Schloss Leichtigkeit,’ she said. Another smile. These were getting smug.

They were starting to infuriate me.

The association of Free Spirits seemed less and less free.

‘Today you must be tired and hungry after your journey.’ She pointed at an iPad on a desk in the living room. ‘All the menus are there, you may have your meals brought to your room or eat in the Refectory. Perhaps you will care to order some lunch?’

I momentarily distracted Bruno from his screen. ‘Are you hungry, darling?’

‘Can I have a cheeseburger? And chips with ketchup, Mama?’

‘It is on the children’s menu,’ Julia Schmitt said. ‘You will find it on page six. Oh, and I have just had a message from the Hochmeister. He will see you here to welcome you himself at five o’clock. Before then I will be back to give you your familiarization tour.’

I thanked her.

She handed me a card with a number on it. ‘If you need me, whatever the time, you call on the room phone and this will reach me.’

As I took it she said, deadpan, ‘There is one more thing before I leave you alone to unpack. When we meet people here, we tell them that we love them. This is very important. Our foundation is love, and this is our greeting. We do this in the common language, which is English.’

‘OK,’ I replied solemnly, ‘thank you.’

She smiled. ‘I love you,’ she said.

‘I love you,’ I replied, feeling absurdly self-conscious.

‘I love you, Bruno,’ she said. But he was staring at his screen again and just frowned.

As soon as she was gone, I sat at the desk and waded through the menu on the iPad. I ordered what Bruno wanted, and a Buddha Bowl for myself. I didn’t have much appetite.

Then, and I had been desperate to do this ever since arriving here, I looked at my phone. I was relieved to see there was a 3G signal, and immediately opened my search engine and typed in Jersey Evening Post, anxious for any possible news about Nicos. Although I had no idea what news I was expecting to find.

I scrolled down through the headlines. The main story was the plan for a new hospital for the island, which was being fiercely debated. The police were having a crackdown on speeding. There was a big piece on house prices, and alarm from the hospitality industry on the number of hotel rooms being lost to property developers building apartments aimed at the booming financial sector.

I almost missed what I had been looking for. Just a couple of column inches, the very last item before the sports news.

A major air-sea search, led by the Guernsey Coastguard, is underway following the discovery of an apparently unmanned St Helier registered motor yacht adrift ten nautical miles west of St Peter Port.

That was all it said.

Shaking, I then checked out the Bailiwick Express, the online newspaper of the Channel Islands. It had the same story, and no more.

Unmanned. Adrift.

I read the few words over and over.

Could it be the Bolt-Hole?

Unmanned.

Adrift.

I wasn’t sure how I felt. What did it mean?

I sure as hell knew what it might mean.

I hadn’t heard from Nicos. Then I realized of course I wouldn’t, I’d tossed the phone with the only number he had overboard. But I’d checked my emails on my laptop at our hotel last night and there had been no email from him. I was half expecting there would have been one, after he’d opened the suitcase and found some of the cash gone.

But I guess I was also half expecting this silence.

The sea around the Channel Islands was a mecca for yachts in the summer months. This boat adrift could have been any boat. There was no reason to speculate about this particular one.

And yet I had every reason.

My insides were in such turmoil that when our food arrived all I could manage of our meal was one mouthful of chickpeas from my Buddha Bowl, and a couple of Bruno’s French fries dunked in ketchup.

A few minutes later, I threw them both up in the loo.