Читать книгу Escaping the Cult: One cult, two stories of survival - Kristina Jones - Страница 21

Hypnotic incantations floated across the garden, hanging in the thick, hot air. Marching side by side, my parents circled the building as they chanted in joint prayer.

I sat cross-legged next to a rose bush, watching. I had baby Aimée in my arms. Guy and Vincent sat at my side. Guy, who had been so badly affected by my mother’s forced long absence when he was two, was still particularly clingy with me, getting panicky and agitated if I disappeared from his sight for more than a few minutes.

He turned to me with puzzled look: ‘What are Mommy and Daddy doing?’

‘They are making our new house nice, sweetheart. It’s called a Jericho march. Do you know the story in the Bible when Joshua and his army marched around the city of Jericho before they went into battle? Well, Daddy is doing that, but for our new home. Just stay quiet and watch him.’

Matt and Marc stood in a far corner of the garden, heads down in the type of private conversation the two of them seemed to have more and more these days.

Slowly, with a perfectly matched rhythm, Mom and Dad repeated their marches round and round the colonial-style green-roofed three-bedroom villa that was to be our new home. Mom suddenly drew a sharp intake of breath, as if she’d been hit with a large object. She fell writhing to the floor and started speaking in shrill tongues, but in two different voices, as though two people were having an argument.

Marc threw her a look of disdain.

She stood up, waving her arms in the air: ‘Go, leave this place. Leave us. I cast you out.’

Dad followed her lead, also urging something to go.

After a few more laps and then going inside to repeat the process in each room, Dad came bounding out, grinning over to us. ‘Welcome to your new home, everyone.’

I was 11. We had just moved country again, this time to Indonesia. We’d landed a few weeks earlier, having been told we were to be based in a large commune in Jakarta. I was not looking forward to being in a big group house again because memories of Bangkok were still all too raw.

But we arrived to the middle of chaos. Grandpa’s death had led all sorts of people to start asking questions about The Family. Dad told us there had been lots of really mean articles in the newspapers saying bad things about him, calling him a madman and a drunk who liked to hurt children. I was upset on Grandpa’s behalf. These people didn’t even know him, so how could they say such things? My father said it was because the ones who were saying it were the crazy ones. The newspapers that wrote those things were in the western countries. The Antichrist controlled those countries and all the institutions in them, including newspapers.

But these stories had created such a problem for The Family that large communes were now deemed a security risk, attracting too much attention. All big houses were ordered to be broken up and their inhabitants dispersed into smaller groups, so they could blend in to the system more easily. Any material stored in communes that the outside world might think was bad – such as the Davidito book, Heaven’s Girl books, Mene letters, Mo letters – were ordered to be burned in a project that the adults called ‘the purge’.

Almost the moment we arrived, a Shepherd asked my dad to start helping him carry boxes of papers to a big bonfire they were building in the garden.

My parents were secretly furious. We’d just been moved out of a perfectly safe, small house in Malaysia. They’d dragged their kids to yet another new country, only to find there was nowhere for them to stay. On top of that my mom was pregnant again, with her eighth child.

Dad managed to secure a meeting with a senior Shepherd to plead our case. The man gave him some funds and told him to find himself a house for us all, but to make sure there was enough space in it to take another family or a few singles if needed. My father was nothing if not resourceful and after asking around the local area found us a villa that had stood empty for years. It had a certain charm but it definitely wasn’t a palace.

We didn’t have any furniture, beds or even mattresses. Mom asked if we could bring some spare things over from the commune but she was told that everything had already been allocated to others. When she questioned this she was told everything had been fairly divided according to need. It was clear that this was not the case. The senior inhabitants took the best furniture and anything valuable for themselves. That upset my mom. She was a pregnant woman with a large family. Surely that should have put us higher up the priority list?

She harked back to the early days of the group when a generous and giving hippy spirit filled the group, the days when someone would rather sleep on a cold floor than see a friend go without a sleeping bag. That ethos had long passed. In the end we managed to salvage a few battered pots and pans and some mattresses.

Despite Dad putting on a brave face we moved into our empty house with heavy hearts. The funds my father had been given covered the rent on the house but not any living costs. He was instructed to ‘live by faith’ and was given several boxes of pamphlets to sell on the streets. The normal rules applied – a percentage of what he made daily we could live on, and the rest was supposed to go back into the group coffers.

Every day he got up at dawn and pounded the streets, in the same way he’d done as a 17-year-old recruit back in Paris. But there was one big difference. Indonesia is a Muslim country. No one wanted to buy his leaflets, not even out of curiosity. People ignored him, pushed past him; others spat at him, calling him an infidel. If he was lucky a couple of old ladies might take pity on him, dropping him a few coins. He came back from witnessing exhausted, tired and depressed, and feeling like a terrible father for failing to bring enough money home to feed his hungry children.

An American uncle moved in with us. He was so creepy, and balding on top with a long ponytail at the back. He had sharp little teeth like a weasel. I hated the way he looked at me. Fortunately my mom noticed it too and did all she could to keep me out of his way, ensuring I was never left alone with him.

Life was definitely hard, in many ways harder than we’d ever known it. But for me there was a silver lining. For the first time in our lives we were a family unit. I shared a room with my siblings, and when we did have enough food for a meal we ate it together. No more Isaiah hitting me with a scrubbing brush, no more Aunty Rebecca force-feeding me eggs, no more twisted perverts like Clay and no more brutes like Ezekiel.

Or so we thought.

On a visit to the senior Shepherd’s house to beg for more funds my dad was startled as someone called his name.

‘Well, if it isn’t me old mate Brother Moonlight. How are you doing? When did you get here?’

The voice was nasal, drawling.

My father turned to face him. ‘Ezekiel.’

‘Come on now, no need for that tone. Time to let bygones be bygones. I have forgiven you for your sins against me, Shepherd Moonlight. I know that messengers of evil poisoned your mind towards me. The Lord sure does test us, doesn’t he?’

‘So where did you go when you left Malaysia, Ezekiel? Straight here? I suppose I should have guessed.’

‘Yes,’ Ezekiel replied. ‘The excommunication was taken to a higher level. No offence, brother, but you were wrong to do that. Your seniors thought so too once they’d heard the truth. They told me it was all hush-hush, to come here and start over. Away from mind-poisoning liars like you.’

My father shook his head in disbelief. In the past few weeks he’d arrived in a new country to find his family had nowhere to live, he’d been told to feed his kids by faith alone in a country with a radically different faith, and he’d seen a man he had thought had been excommunicated firmly still a member of The Family. In the past he’d had doubts, even wondered what it was all for. Now he felt blind fury.

For the first time since they had left France he was able to go home, stand in his kitchen and tell his wife exactly how he felt. Neither of them had to go share another’s bed that night; no one could overhear them, no one was going to report on them. As he vented his rage she stood behind him massaging his shoulders. When he finished she cupped his cheeks in her hands and kissed him. ‘Don’t feed your anger. Find the victory, my love.’

He put his hands on her heavily pregnant belly. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me. Maybe they were right to forgive Ezekiel if he repented. I don’t know. I honestly don’t know.’

She kissed the top of his head gently. ‘Why don’t we go pray? Children, come. I want us all to pray for Ezekiel and his family.’

We gathered in the kitchen, got down on our knees and did as she asked. As I prayed a vision of Clay floated into my mind. I flirted with the idea of telling them about the abuse. There was nothing to lose now and I was quite sure that they wouldn’t accuse me of lying. But I let the thought go, deciding that telling them wouldn’t change anything.

For a couple more months we bumbled along, hungry and worried about the future, but generally OK. Without the stress of other aunties and uncles monitoring our behaviour both my parents relaxed our usual discipline. One morning Mom took us completely by surprise. She was cooking a gratin for dinner but had run out of milk.

‘Darlings, why don’t you go fetch me some? Don’t go far, just to that little shack two streets along, you know the one. Do not talk to anyone and come right back. Daddy will be home soon and this needs to be ready for him. Matt, you will be in charge. You make sure you all hold hands. OK?’

He nodded, his face a picture of excitement. She handed us a few coins and sent us on our way. It was astonishing. The only time any of us had been outside without adult supervision was back in Thailand when Matt and Marc had wandered outside to look at some birds. They were caught by an uncle and thrashed. I couldn’t think of a single time I had gone out alone.

The four of us practically danced down the street. Fields of rice paddies surrounded the dirt road, and buffaloes wandered by, kicking clouds of dirt into the air with their hooves. Even when a man cycled past us wearing a pointed straw hat I didn’t flinch. Our new-found freedom was more emboldening than scary. We turned left into the road, then right again and into a tiny local bazaar made up of a glass-fronted shop selling systemite medicines in little white boxes. Next to it was a wooden shack selling tins of food, milk powder, boxes of crisps and fresh fruit. Behind it, humming loudly, was a large refrigerator. I didn’t like it. I pulled Vincent away, half expecting it to open and snatch us. Matt had taken on an air of seriousness as he pointed at the fridge and spoke to the man standing beside the shack. ‘Fresh milk, please.’

I was in awe. Where did he learn to do that?

Matt fished in his pocket and handed the man all the coins. The man counted them, then handed Matt some back. Matt looked confused and handed them back over. The man gave them back, laughing as spoke in broken English: ‘No. Too much. This change.’

Matt looked at the coins he’d been given, then at us, then back at the coins. ‘No,’ he muttered to himself, placing them back in his pocket. ‘Come on, let’s go home.’

I grabbed his hand, Vincent hanging onto mine. We’d barely got to the corner when Matt stopped, telling us to wait. He took the coins back out of his pocket, placed them in his palm and stared at them again. He looked at Marc questioningly.

Marc understood exactly: ‘Yeah, why not? She won’t know. Not if we don’t tell her.’

We walked back to the stand, eyeing the goods in wonderment. By now it was obvious to Vincent and me that Matt intended to spend the change. My eyes lingered greedily on a packet of chewy sweets in a pink candy-striped wrapper.

Matt held out our booty to the man. He put the coins in his pocket, chuckling to himself, before handing over a little carton of yoghurt drink. He fished under his counter and pulled out a yellow plastic straw. ‘Here. Take.’

Matt carefully opened it, put the straw inside and took a long sip. ‘Oh yummy, this is gooood.’

Next he handed it to Marc. ‘In age order, OK? No one be greedy and no one spill it. OK, Vincent? Be careful.’

One by one we took a careful sip, nodding and grinning at each other.

When we’d drained the carton of every last drop we walked home in a gleeful silence. As we neared the house Matt stopped us again.

‘No one says anything. Right? This is our secret. Ours.’

We nodded at him reverentially, our new leader.

When we got home my dad was already there. He was sitting on the floor with his head in his hands. Mom was peeling potatoes, but she was also crying.

I ran over to my father, pushing myself onto his lap. ‘Daddy. What’s happened?’

He stared up at me with exhausted, dejected eyes. ‘We are being deported, Natacha. We have to go to France.’

‘France? I don’t understand what you mean. Why do we have to go?’

His eyes met my mother’s. They looked at each other for a very long time before he spoke: ‘Because the system found us, that’s why.’