her life on empty.
THE ICE PRINCESS
Ingeborg settled in Toronto. Occasionally on weekends she accompanied friends to a dance hall where she sat at a table, her long legs crossed, smoke curling from her lips around her shoulder-length dark hair. Detached, reserved and frozen, she surveyed the activity in the smoke-hazed room but refused to join in.
One of those nights Ingeborg deliberately ignored a handsome young man laughing at a nearby table with his friends. Dark and confident, he attempted to catch her eye with a friendly grin. Twice she noticed him looking at her, but she averted her glance quickly to signal disinterest. One of his friends pointed toward her and said, “Her? Everybody asks her to dance, but she always turns them down.”
He was undaunted. Without taking his eyes off her, he pushed away from the table. “She’ll dance with me,” he said with a smile. He stopped before her, extended his hand and waited. Ingeborg stared into his friendly eyes, put her hand in his and rose to dance. At five feet seven, she was slender and graceful. Bari Basar (Ejubowic)—then known as Gino Ejubowic—moved her masterfully onto the dance floor, where his skills as a ballroom dance instructor showcased the beauty of the mysterious ice princess.
Bari Basar was raised in Yugoslavia, where his father had been a lawyer—the wealthiest man in the country. He had owned restaurants, hotels and many blocks of buildings. In 1945, however, when King Petar surrendered to Tito and the Communist People’s Republic of Yugoslavia was established, Bari’s father was targeted because of his wealth and education and thrown in jail. His properties were confiscated by the state and his businesses were allocated as state-owned enterprises.
Young Bari was next to be arrested, but to facilitate his escape, he changed his name to Ejubowic and fled north to Austria. He was assigned to Refugee Camp Number Five in Klappenberg, where he learned German and lived from 1945 to 1948. When camp residents discovered his talents, they begged him to teach them to dance the Viennese waltz, the English waltz, the foxtrot—all the fashionable dances of the day.
In the meantime, Bari’s mother fled with his two sisters to Turkey. Once Bari’s dad was released from jail, he left Yugoslavia and moved to Turkey as well. It would be 19 years before Bari would be reunited with his family.
In 1948, when Bari could return to Germany, he chose Salzburg in hopes of finding a job. He had saved some money, and in 1950 he attended Nurnberg University to study electrical engineering—an undertaking he interrupted for a trip to Canada. He hoped to work in Canada for a short time, make some money to send home to his family, learn English and return to Germany to resume life there.
Bari’s plans failed. He became entangled with Ingeborg.
TRAPPED
It was 1954. Bari and Ingeborg spent time together, and he noticed her instability. A nurturing, helpful and compassionate man, he wanted to help her develop a stronger sense of herself, but her woundedness ran deeper than he realized, and his attempt to “fix” her was unsuccessful. In a flash of manipulative insecurity, she vowed that if he wouldn’t marry her, she would kill herself.
Bari felt trapped. Unwilling for Ingeborg to face such a fate, he rescued her. “I saved her life,” he always said thereafter. They married that year in October. Unfortunately it was not for love. Their relationship was grounded in Ingeborg’s manipulation and Bari’s pity.
Ingeborg didn’t tell her parents she was getting married. Even if they had been in Canada, she likely wouldn’t have invited them to the wedding. When Oma and Opa found out their daughter had married without telling them, they were grief-stricken. Oma wept the tears only parents abandoned and rejected by a child they love could understand.
In hopes of rebuilding a relationship, Oma and Opa invited the newlyweds to visit. They knew nothing about their son-in-law and worried how they might communicate with him so were pleasantly surprised when Bari greeted them at the airport speaking German.
Oma and Opa adored their daughter’s husband. He was handsome, witty and outgoing. He loved people, and people loved him. While Bari engaged everyone in the room, the ice princess sat in a corner hidden behind a book. She rejected attention and let people know she needed no one.
HOPE DEFERRED
In their quiet moments alone, Oma and Opa talked about how wonderful it would be if Ingeborg and Bari would settle in Germany. They contemplated how they might help make it possible and decided to offer Bari 50,000 German marks to start a business.
The idea produced a distinct change in Ingeborg. She loved it and became excited. Her life in Canada had proved unfruitful and she had no reason to return, but Bari could not be persuaded. He didn’t want to be “bought,” and he refused the offer. Again, my grandparents’ hopes were dashed. They grieved, and so did Ingeborg.
Years later Bari confessed he had regretted his decision to reject my grandparents’ offer. He blamed himself for altering the course of their lives for nothing more than foolish, youthful pride. He believed that had he consented to live in Germany, things would have been different. That was certainly Ingeborg’s contention. Upon their return to Canada, Ingeborg fell into a deep depression.
Who is to say how things might have turned out had Bari and Ingeborg remained in Germany? Ingeborg’s personality, rooted in woundedness, would have had the same effect on her relationships whether in Germany or in Canada. Also, a marriage such as theirs, founded on manipulation, was not destined to last.
Bari wanted to introduce his bride to his family in Turkey. He proposed a two-year trial visit, suggesting that Ingeborg might want to settle there, but she refused. It was her revenge for his decision to leave Germany. “I’ll go with you to Russia; I’ll go with you to China; but I’ll never go to Turkey,” she insisted. Instead, she became pregnant with me, and she wasn’t happy about it.
Forty years later, in a most unusual way, I learned the truth—she hated me before I was born.
REVELATION
At that point in my adult life I had a close personal relationship with God and was attending a conference at a church in Toronto where God’s tangible presence was manifest. It was magnetic, irresistible and therapeutic. As people yielded to God, His Spirit filled them with love and healing.
That’s what happened to me one evening. The pastor invited people to come forward for prayer, and I was drawn to respond. As he prayed for me, suddenly the Holy Spirit came over me in such a breathtaking, warm, powerful embrace of pure love that I couldn’t remain on my feet. My knees buckled and I sank to the floor. As I lay there I had a peaceful sense of being underwater. Puzzled at first, I tried to assess where I was because I lay curled in a fetal position. It seemed as if I was back in my mother’s womb. This may sound strange to some, but let me explain.
When God gives one an unusual experience such as this, it’s either a resurrected memory or a vision. God allows it for His purposes so He can reveal something otherwise unknown to the individual. In my case, I experienced what is known as an open vision, through which God retrieved a memory for me of what happened before I was born.
The vision of being in the womb was so real that I was totally oblivious to being on the floor in a meeting. I heard talking, but the voices were those of my mother and father arguing. It was as though I was right there with them. My mother was angry at my father because she was pregnant with me.
Then the scene shifted. I became aware of a sharp object penetrating my safe space and coming toward me. As tiny as I was in the womb, I recognized danger, and terror gripped me. My fear was very
