The Thin Line Between – A Memoir. One Family, Three Generations
By Mariëlle Renssen

93,000 words, 200 pages

Familial interrelationships. A journey into mysticism. Travel. An enduring and not-always-successful drive for self-independence in the need to break the ties that bind. This is a true story across three generations of a single family. Three lives, three very different stories.

Because each story is so widely divergent, based on different experiences yet linked by the genetic connections of family heritage, this memoir is written as a trilogy. It is a story of displacement, emigration, travel to distant lands, and continually starting a new life. A story of love, death, Alzheimer’s, complex family relationships.
The narrative starts in Sumatra, Indonesia, during the Japanese occupation in World War II where Lella’s Dutch grandmother and mother (only 10 at the time), are interned in a concentration camp. The horrors of Japanese cruelty are relived. The second story begins briefly in Holland then moves to Southern Rhodesia, as Lella’s mother, at 24, follows her new husband Henri to Africa to begin a new, unknown future. While Henri tries to establish himself as a tobacco farmer, facing the caprices of weather and farming’s many challenges, it is the 1970s and terrorist activity marks the country’s fight for independence. Henri and his wife are forced to migrate to South Africa to start a new life. The final story focuses on rebellious, free-spirited Lella and her obsessive search for independence from her family. In Cape Town she meets a kindred spirit in Hirsh and together they embark on a nomadic life themselves, travelling around the world, living in different cities and twice on a different continent.
A main thread running throughout the story is Lella’s interest in mysticism and mythology as she’s inducted into astrology, tarot, the runes, and a personal exploration of her surreal dreams. In her efforts to parse the complex relationships with her family, Lella discovers that the boundaries between the material world and the invisible dimension are more porous and permeable than she’d imagined.

Mariëlle has worked variously at a major architectural firm, Fair Lady magazine, YM (a New-York based teenage magazine), and the onetime Struik New Holland, a large publisher of illustrated books, among many other genres. She later became an editorial freelancer and has written and published many non-fiction books, in particular on travel. She and husband Hirsh have lived in Zimbabwe, Cape Town, twice in New York City, and Knysna. They have travelled extensively through Southern Africa, Europe, the American continent and parts of the Middle East. They presently live in Knysna.

Mad desperation sometimes nudged a few fearless individuals to sneak to areas of the camp that were fenced rather than walled. Called gedek, the Dutch word for ‘fence’, local villagers hid out on the other side in the hope of trading bananas or eggs (sometimes cigarettes) for a valued personal possession. Sometimes the camp women were successful in evading the soldiers. Sometimes not.

One late afternoon, a transaction was taking place between a Sumatran villager and Marieke, a tall big-boned internee with ash-blonde hair. Wakabayashi, the camp commandant, was taking a stroll around the perimeter. He always wore a peaked cap on his shaven head and he bore a pronounced scar on his upper left cheek. His was a cruel mouth unacquainted with smiling. Above it, eyes were hard and flinty, expressionless. He was never without his sword in its scabbard. Strapped to his waist it hung low, almost touching the ground. Wakabayashi emerged from a grove of trees in time to witness a banana-leaf-wrapped parcel being pushed through the fence.

Anger flushed his pale skin. Working into a rage he lurched forward, shouting at Marieke who now turned, fear transfixing her face. He reached her, bellowing a string of Japanese words, and wrenched her arm to pull her in the direction of the sleep-shelters. Marieke’s eyes smarted in pain. His fingernails were digging into her skin and her arm felt as if it had been yanked out of its socket. Fear ran like molten lava in her veins. Her heart felt tight, as if every last drop of blood had been squeezed from it.

She knew the cruelty of these soldiers. She’d watched a woman being knocked to the ground with a rifle butt and kicked repeatedly in the groin and stomach. The woman hadn’t bowed low enough and then had made a sarcastic comment under her breath. Afterward, she was convinced she had a cracked rib (or three). Her stomach was so tender she could hardly sit down or stand up. Black and blue bruises were still visible weeks later.

Marieke’s head was a whirling maelstrom of What Ifs. The wrestling pair reached the concrete plinth outside the main shelter, startling the women resting on their pallets after an arduous day’s work. Wakabayashi shouted at the women in Japanese and swept his free arm in a wide curve as if to herd them around the kitchen plinth. With looks of apprehension and bewilderment, women and children followed his instructions, some mothers already covering their children’s eyes with their hands. He pulled Marieke to one of the flat concrete surfaces, held down her arm and indicated with his free hand that she splay her fingers. Abject terror filled her eyes. She cried out, “Nee, nee, nee! Alsjeblieft nee! NEE!“, the last a primal scream. Wakabayashi pulled his sword from its sheath in a single flourish, raised it above his shoulder, then brought it smashing down on her fingers.

A Fog Drifts In

We are standing under a row of plane trees alongside the N2 highway in Sedgefield. A neutral spot. Two families: Allison, Djirck, Papa and Maltese poodle Arfur; Hirsh and I. Djirck has said unequivocally that he wants nothing to do with settling Papa into the Alzheimer’s house. He simply cannot go through with it, cannot bear to abandon his father, drive away knowing he will probably never see him again. It is a terrible, terrible betrayal.

The tight knot is again in the pit of my stomach. We greet one another, hug. Papa is a little distracted, a little disoriented. He stands a bit to the side, smoking, with Arfur sniffing the new, strange territory around his feet. Allison whispers an aside to me that Papa is tired, it has been a long journey, his head is confused with all the goings-on and newness of things. After we’ve spoken a short while, Allison and I herd Papa and Arfur into their vehicle, Hirsh and Djirck get into Hirsh’s Land Rover. He is going to take my brother off somewhere to distract him.

“Papa,” I say, “Allison and Djirck just need to go off and do some business with the transport trucks. We’re going to take you to their friends, just for a day. They’re going to look after you while Djirck sorts out his affairs. They’re very nice.”

“Heh?” he says in his thick Dutch accent, a little surprised.

“It’ll be fine, Papa, it’s just for a short while,” I say, my heart beating in my throat. Allison has tears in her eyes.

We stop outside the front gate of the facility. Ilse is waiting for us. She comes out immediately, with welcoming arms, a couple of staff members behind her. With all the introductions and voices and laughter, Papa is completely befuddled. “You must be so tired after your long journey, Henri,” says Ilse putting her arms around his shoulders. “Come, come inside, I’ll make you a nice cup of tea. I’m sure you’d like that.”

“Ooh, tea, that sounds good,” says Papa. “Yes, please.” He is led off like a lamb to the slaughter. Allison and I get moving quickly. We’ve brought duvet covers and pillowcases from home so that he will awaken to something familiar. Together with his clothes, Allison has packed photos and a few personal effects to make his immediate space resemble home. Ilse has already briefed me on when next I should see him. It is inadvisable to visit a newly installed Alzheimer’s patient before a period of three weeks is up, she said. This gives the person time to adjust to his new surroundings, get into a routine, and start to feel familiar with the changed environment.

Ilse has warned us not to linger too long, simply to leave it to her, and to make a quick exit. With the stressfulness of the situation, Allison and I are quite happy to take this advice. With quick hugs, chimes of “See you soon, Papa!”, lots of waving, we hurry down the path and into the car. A flood of tears erupts. Allison drives the car around the corner, out of sight, then brakes. We both sit there, shaking and sobbing. “That was awful! SO awful!” chokes Allison. “I just can’t bear to think we’re not going to see him again.”

I loved your book. The layers, the depth, the progression, the complexity, and the beautiful writing! And I loved the mysticism.

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An amazing writer with a great sense of humour. I laughed out loud at her quips. I highly recommend this to everyone.

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Your book has me in tears! Your writing is beautiful and your story heartbreaking!

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It’s a long time since I struggled to put a book down. It is captivating and so well written in her inimitable style.

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A beautiful, sad, amazing , intriguing book … And those harrowing accounts of the POW camps! I am in awe of how much she shares and how beautifully it is written. So much one can relate to, the family Alzheimer’s, the pain between siblings.

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She is so descriptive with her words, it gives the reader such great visual imagery.

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It’s a great read, I loved the insight into the lives of previous generations and what they faced.