FW baulked at Marike's book
2010-10-03 16:37
Johannesburg - Marike de Klerk, the murdered ex-wife of former South African president FW de Klerk, was so bitter about her failed marriage that she wrote a poisonous chapter about it in her autobiography.
It has now emerged that FW prevented the publication of a chapter titled Grotgesprek (Cave Conversation) in the autobiography titled 'n Plek Waar Die Son Weer Skyn (A Place Where The Sun Shines Again).
The chapter did not appear in the final version of the book. City Press obtained the original version of the chapter from a source who asked to remain anonymous.
FW’s former wife was murdered in her luxury flat in Bloubergstrand in 2001.
The couple had divorced the previous year following reports about FW’s affair with Elita Georgiades, then the wife of Greek millionaire Tony Georgiades.
Maretha Maartens, the author of a biography on De Klerk, confirmed that the former president had stopped the publication of the chapter.
“Yes, the manuscript was submitted to Mr De Klerk. He asked that certain sections be omitted,” said Maartens.
'Recommendations'
FW’s spokesperson, Dave Steward, said that the former president remembered making a few recommendations, but that it was up to the author and publishers to decide whether to accept them.
Coenie Schoeman, publisher of Carpe Diem Boeke, said the publishers had an agreement with FW that allowed him to see the final version.
“Maretha and I went to see him. Initially he was difficult and worried about what would be published.
The book was almost completed at the time of the divorce. But in the end FW was satisfied,” said Schoeman.
Marike’s battle with sorrow and anguish is evident in the chapter omitted from the book.
“At night, when 40 years worth of inescapable memories return, I know the extent of my loss, my humiliation and my fear. At night I am an old woman who sits at the dark entrance of the cave alone with my arms wrapped around me.
“At night I produce sermons in the sitting room with the alarm clock ticking like a metronome in the silence of this cave for mothers:
“Teach your daughter to be able to say at all times that I think too much of myself to selfishly destroy another person’s life.”
Addressing the so-called “Other Woman” to whom she often refers in the book, De Klerk writes: “At night I tell the Other Woman what I don’t dare to say during the day.
“The final decision about the beginning of an ‘affaire’ rests with you. There is nothing that cannot be decided by a decision of will. There is no emotion so violent that a normal, intelligent woman cannot end it. Any woman can say it won’t go further.”
She continues: “You were a broken-winged bird, Other Woman. To my husband you said with or without him you no longer want your own husband, your life was a desert.
“At night I wonder whether you are really flying higher than before. And if you really drink from clear streams these days.
“The price, Other Woman, that others pay for your ‘yes’ is, as always, particularly high. It is not only I who will die a lonely death, Other Woman. You will probably too.
“At your deathbed faces will also be missing because divorce makes everyone lonely.”
