Page 14 - In a different register - Sample

All this, about which I knew nothing, said Mary, came to me as a revelation about my Christian Heritage. I was not unfamiliar with this kind of violence in South Africa. Jo! That was a heavy trip.She shared her heaviness with an old man at the Pension in Marseille. Why not go to the chapel in Vence above Nice, he said. It is named after you – it is the Chapel of the Rosary - designed by Henri Matisse. You will find healing there, balm from our Lady of sorrows. He was wrong, of course, to confuse me with the Virgin Mary, but never the less I went. Vence is a market town but the haunt of artists and writers. Even Dante included the Lord of Vence in his Paradiso. I headed straight for the Chapelle Matisse about ten minutes out of Vence across the bridge over the River Foux. Because the chapel is small I was immediately drawn into an oasis of light cast by the stain glass window of the Tree of Life. The mosaic of blue and yellow light permeates the simplicity of the interior where every item is the creation of Matisse. Here was a good place to seek absolution for the continuing inhumanity of man to man throughout the centuries both in Europe and the place she called ‘home’. ∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞Back in London, said Mary, I met J at the massive wooden door of the College front entrance. An eagle crest emblazoned the centre of a curved wrought iron motto. The quick handshake and ‘good to see you’ was followed by, ‘This way to the dining room’. It was a huge institutional room with many white clothed tables each replete with crude bottle of tap water. A canteen ran down one side. Hair- netted ladies in uniform stood waiting to serve from steaming bain-marie.J chose one end of a long table with a number of places taken. We emptied our trays. It was the first time I really noticed his face. Pale. Perfect symmetry. Long nose. Broad expressive mouth, well-bred ‘English’. “There was a programme on South Africa on the tele last night”, said J. “I especially watched it so that I might get to know a bit about you”. Deflecting but relishing the personal tendril, I launched into an expose of the political scene unfolding there. Worse than when I had left. The townships were on fire. The custom of neck-lacing suspected but not proven traitors with blazing car tyres had started. Hippos roamed with young SANDF joy riders ruling the waves. Anyone black could be stopped, interrogated, anywhere, anytime. On any pretext doors could be battered down and all the occupants searched, shredded, on whim. Houses were bulldozed. Forced removals to windswept barren plains on the outskirts of the cities multiplied. Enforcement of the barbaric, if not ludicrous, Immorality Act whereby the sexual act between couples of different race was deemed not only illegal