August. Late at night. Silence in the streets and in my heart. My brother-in-law sent me a quote by French philosopher Ernest Renan – ‘Man is not placed on the earth merely to be happy, nor is he placed merely to be honest, he’s here to accomplish great things through society. To arrive at nobleness and to outgrow the vulgarity in which the existence of almost all individuals drags on.’ Not so sure about the last bit … The phone rings. I’m already in bed reading.
‘Tracey from the Austin Hospital. We have a liver that might suit you. There’s two possible recipients, but it looks promising for you.’ I can’t breathe for a while. I realise I have nothing ready to take with me, jump out of bed and quickly pack a toothbrush, a shaver and a change of clothing. Check my email but the line is dead. Ring Kyra. Don’t want to really wake her, but she would expect it. I drive off, forget my mobile phone, return home and then proceed towards Kyra’s home. On the way, a million and one thoughts cross my mind. Memories of a distant past, planes in the sky and war raging all around, my mother’s soft embrace, the first day at school. Then the practical need of staying on the road becomes essential. Almost lose my way along a very familiar route. Kyra is waiting for me, looking a little pale and tired. Off we go to the hospital Emergency Department. Straight away, blood pressure and pulse is taken, and after an X-ray we go upstairs, where I finally land in a single room and much blood is taken and carried off. Now I’m left alone and think of all the things I’ve forgotten to do. People walk in and out of my room. I feel very social and want to talk, but everyone is too busy.
Ulli Beier and his wife Georgina are coming the day after tomorrow. We met in New Guinea so many years ago. That same night, Anoja Weerasinghe arrives from Sri Lanka. She was one of the three actresses in my film Island and is now a fine and noble crusader for her people and her country. What will they do when I’m not there? This is probably the last time I can pass on some information as I expect to be out of it for quite a few days. Maybe I shouldn’t worry about anything, but that’s not my nature.
Kyra has gone home for a while. She needs to sleep. Even though I took a sleeping pill before I went to bed, I’m not tired. I feel remarkably calm. This is a big moment in my life. Still don’t understand why all this had to happen to me. Only twenty years ago, before a liver transplant was possible, I would’ve died. Now I sit here in a single room with a large sign on the wall ‘NIL ORALLY’. Waiting for the doctors to inspect the liver they have and decide who’s going to be the recipient. Meanwhile, I have to be ready and standing by.
The door of my room is open. A man is screaming in the corridor. I don’t know what language. People rush towards him, calm him down, drug him, put him out of his misery. A scream wells up inside my heart – a silent scream. My life no longer belongs to me.
It’s now early morning. I have a little sleep with no dreams. A female doctor comes to take notes and admit me to the hospital officially. She is called away without finishing the job. I still don’t know if the liver they have will be mine. The doctor and the nurse who have been attending to me wish me well with the operation. The nurse claims that I will be on my feet within a few days. Will the operation go ahead? Everything seems all right and in place, but there’s another person whose need for a new liver might be more urgent than mine.
Nijinsky wrote in his diary, ‘I feel a piercing stare from behind, I feel that people want to harm me, but I will not fight and my enemy will be disarmed. They may wound me, but they cannot kill me. I know how to suffer.’ The people here want to help me, save me, but the ‘piercing stare from behind’ is a metaphor I’ve been living with for many years. To me it means that we’re being watched, being talked about; negative energy is being put out there that needs to be counterbalanced. The ‘piercing stare’ now is probably the small chance that I might not wake up from the operation, that death is lurking nearby and that I will have to fight. When things were really bad and there wasn’t any hope of survival, I stopped listening to music. It made me too sad. Now I would love to have Mozart playing in my room, or an Italian opera, the gypsy music from the Balkans or the sarod of Ali Akbar Khan.
I think that music is the basis of all creation. At the first ‘rough cut’ screening of Father Damien in Brussels, Theo van Gogh and Paul Grabowsky, the composer, are sitting next to me. There’s a moment when the music soars and merges perfectly and completely with the moving image, a magic moment of bliss. We share something higher, beyond earthly matters. Paul’s face glows in the dark. We both know we’ve hit that ‘high note’. Theo brings us right back to earth when he whispers, ‘Yes, yes alright … But the producers won’t get it’. Theo was right. The producers didn’t recognise ‘the hand of God’ and later destroyed the glory of the film. Don’t know why I’m thinking about this now, something to do with the longing for good music.
A young Chinese doctor comes to ask a few questions, once again examines the abdomen and then needs my signature on a form just in case something goes wrong with the operation. Nothing will go wrong.
From where I sit, I can look into a long corridor with all sorts of people starting their daily duties. Nurses appearing and disappearing. A cleaning lady makes her way towards me. We immediately become engaged in a lively discussion. So many people have been killed in her country – so much suffering she’s seen and experienced. She asks me why fish smell from the head and not from the rear! I don’t know the answer. Apparently it’s because the people at the head of her country are smelly fish – of course they also smell from the rear, but it doesn’t compare with the vile smell that comes from their heads. She fled with her husband – likes the safety of Australia, even though she can only get a job as a cleaner – but is very homesick. Every time she has earned enough money, she goes ‘home’ to regenerate and feel complete again. When she talks about the beauty of her town and the surrounding forests, her eyes grow moist. Another cleaner enters, and complains about her slow performance. She silently continues and disappears into the corridor. The other cleaner wipes some imaginary dust off a ridge and shakes her head.
It’s eight-thirty in the morning. I’m waiting to be called either to the operating theatre or to be sent home. Kyra rings, and can’t understand that I still haven’t heard. We just have to be patient and ready to accept whatever happens. It’s an extraordinary thought – in a few hours I could be facing a huge operation that will have large repercussions for the rest of my life. Now it’s ten-thirty, and I still don’t know. If I’ve learnt anything in the last few months, it’s patience and the acceptance of a life of uncertainty.
Thinking about the person who has left this Earth. Organ donation is a phenomenal advancement in science. Part of a dead person is going to live within me. I must honour this soul and the people who loved him or her by doing something beautiful with the rest of my life. Of course nothing has happened yet, but that’s the plan.
A doctor has just come in, together with the psychiatrist I spoke to earlier. ‘This is a dummy run. The liver has gone to a needy child.’ That I’m even being considered and already high on the list has given me such a boost in confidence that I instantly feel resigned to this news. Pity, but I will get my liver. I have to be patient and strong. Kyra has more difficulty coping with this news. They let us wait until a nurse and a psychiatrist are available to help us cope. Very considerate, but we’re coping very well and should’ve been home and asleep by now.
I’m beyond the disappointment now. Still complete – my body isn’t scarred from head to toe. Ulli Beier and his wife, Georgina, are still staying at my home. So is Anoja Weerasinghe, my Sri Lankan actress friend. Ulli and Georgina lived in Africa, ran workshops and published many books on Africa and its people. Then they went to New Guinea to teach at the new university of Port Moresby. Ulli is tired and feels old, but when animated, his old spark and sense of humour returns. They retired and went to live in Australia, but we’ve all concluded that this was a mistake. They aren’t good at living in the West. It’s as simple as that.
Anoja was a big star in her own country and in the East. I travelled once with her and her husband through Sri Lanka and witnessed close up how she was adored and loved by her people, including the prime minister at the time. While crossing the street, he said to me, ‘You’re my bodyguard. They will never attack me when I’m with a foreigner.’ A few weeks later he was blown up, together with some forty people of his government.
During the 2000 presidential election, Anoja got involved in politics and decided to back the opposition leader. Her popularity was a great asset. She addressed seven rallies, gave emotional speeches that were very much appreciated by the ordinary, struggling people, but her whole political career lasted some three days. After the old president was reinstated, Anoja’s house was burned down and thugs from the Government waited with machetes and guns for her to emerge from the burning ruins, to rape and then kill her. They’d forgotten to check whether she was home. It was a deciding step for Anoja to change her life and her future.
Now Anoja is a Buddhist nun. Her long black hair is gone, and instead of gracing the silver screen with her exotic beauty, she’s looking after tsunami victims and war orphans, which has made her much happier than when she was a popular star.
I’m too sick now to function on a daily level. The nausea and headaches used to come and go, but now the nausea has settled and the lack of energy forces me to stay in bed.
In this morning’s newspaper I see two small articles that draw my attention. The northern part of Sri Lanka is heavily flooded. Some 200,000 people are homeless. After the war and the tsunami in which so many perished, nature turns against them again. A second article concerns a patch of land in Los Angeles, next to the grave of Marilyn Monroe. This patch of soil is becoming available because the widow of the man who’s been laid to rest here has decided to have his bones removed and put the patch up for auction. She has been struggling with a million-dollar mortgage and expects to get a million or so for the land, poor woman! Already some ardent Marilyn lovers have come forward. They are keen to contemplate an underground affair with Marilyn. This is reported in all seriousness, by a serious newspaper. A week later, I hear that the land next to Marilyn’s went for $4 million at auction, four times more than what was expected!