Not Without My Sister (11 page)

I was five when an adult escorted Celeste and me from Macau back to Manila to live at Marianne's Home. I was put into a group of four other children my age, under the care of a tough German woman named Auntie Stacey, who believed a healthy hiding was the best medicine for children and she dished it out regularly. Our group of five children—three to five years old—were schooled, slept, ate, showered, and "made love" together.
Everything was rigidly scheduled—from school hours to one hour of exercise time in the garden. We even had scheduled "date" times, where we each picked the partner we were to have sex with, held out our hands for a glob of pink baby lotion and proceeded to our various beds. The adults used KY jelly, but for some reason baby lotion was the lubricant of choice for us little ones. We knew what to do, as we had seen our teachers at it often enough, though we were a little lacking in the actual mechanics. Generally, the boy got on top of the girl, and a lot of sounds followed in the general rhythm of "Ooh—Aah, Ooh—Aah, Ooh—Aah."

Often I was the odd one out. Marianne's son, Pierre, regularly refused to date me, even though I always asked him first. He preferred cuddling up with Auntie Stacey, which bothered me. I would sit and stare at them, wondering why he was lying with a grown-up who wasn't his mummy and why she never invited me for a cuddle. Sometimes, I would be coupled with the youngest boy, who was only three. This was an insult even harder to bear.
Needless to say, I quickly developed a distaste for date naps, and became something of a childish prude. I did not like people touching me; even hugs I began to slink away from, subconsciously associating them with either spankings or sex. I started having terrible nightmares and was afraid to fall asleep at night. I would lie awake till two in the morning at times, fighting it. When the lights had gone out, the giant cockroaches would come crawling out of the cracks in the floor and I would lie frozen in my bed watching them crawl up the wall and over my sheets. I was afraid if I fell asleep, my mouth would fall open and one of the creatures would crawl inside, like I heard happened to one of the uncles in the home.
We were required to call all the adults "Uncle" or "Auntie" as a sign of respect. Ignoring this title was sure to invite severe punishment. We were taught good old-fashioned manners: to say "please" and "thank you," to reply to anyone addressing us with, "yes, ma'am" or "yes, sir." As I was the only child in the home without a parent, there was no one to protect me. I got daily spankings for trivial offences such as forgetting an instruction or arguing with my peers. Once again, the group operated a system of Demerits, and three marks against you in a day earned a spanking. I was so terrified of spankings that I started lying when accused of a misdemeanour. As a result, I received many unjust beatings when I was truly innocent, because, like the boy who cried "wolf," they no longer believed me.
Once, the other girl in my class, Nyna, went for a birthday outing with her parents, and was allowed to pick a present. She chose a ring and bracelet set and, to be fair, and having "all things common," they got me one too. Hers was red, mine blue. It took only one day for Nyna to break her fragile bracelet. The ring, she dropped down a snake hole in the garden to see how deep it went. It was too deep to recover.
The next day Nyna approached me. "Julie, can I borrow your ring from you? I lost mine." I hemmed and hawed, unwilling to relinquish my new treasure so soon and suspecting I might not see it again. She became angry. "I got it for you for my birthday, so you have to share it with me." I saw slight reason in this, so I gave it up but made her promise to give it back in the morning.
That afternoon in the garden, my ring followed Nyna's down the snake hole. Naturally, I cried over its loss. The next day, sitting on the toilet, while the other kids brushed their teeth, I decided to talk to her about it. "Nyna, I'm very sad you lost my ring." I sighed for added effect.
Nyna was a fiery redheaded Aries, with a load of freckles and a superiority complex to match, and she puffed furiously, "I'm going to tell Auntie Stacey on you!"
"For what?" But she had already stormed out of the bathroom. I could hear her high-pitched voice in the bedroom.
"Julie! Come here right now!" Auntie Stacey boomed from the next room and she did not sound happy. The other children came running into the toilet to fetch me, as excited as if someone had shouted "fight'; I was about to be disciplined and that always broke the monotony of the day.
"Auntie Stacey wants you right now!" they chorused.
"I'm coming. I just need to finish using the bathroom."
The children rushed to report an update to the teacher—and returned even quicker.
"Auntie Stacey says to come right now, or you'll be in bigger trouble." Yes, I knew that. Quick as I could, I finished my business, washed my hands and went to face whatever it was I had been accused of. But this time, I was not sweating, and my heart was not pounding. I knew I had done nothing wrong, so I would not be punished.
Auntie Stacey stood me in front of her. "Nyna here tells me that you said, 'I'm very mad at you for losing my ring, and I'm going to kill you!' Is that true?"
"I didn't say that at all Auntie Stacey. I said, 'I'm very sad you lost my ring.' That's all."
"That's not true! That's not true!" Nyna shouted. 'Ask Pierre, he was there." Pierre was Nyna's boyfriend. They were the self-ordained king and queen, and very kindly granted me the role of princess, even though I was a year older than both of them. Pierre had not even been in the bathroom at the time.
"Yes, it's true," he chimed in dutifully. "She said it." "I didn't Auntie, I didn't."
"Now Julie, I'm going to ask you again, and I want you to tell me the truth this time. Did you say you were mad and wanted to kill Nyna?"
"No, I didn't."

"Okay, we're all going to go for lunch, and you're going to stay here until you're ready to tell the truth. If you don't tell me by the time I get back, I'm going to have to give you a spanking for lying."
I was left alone, and began to cry. But this time I cried more over the injustice than the threat of the beating itself. Armi came into the room, sat next to me and asked what was wrong. I blubbered out the whole story.
Of course there was nothing she could do to help me, but she tried to comfort me all the same. Her sympathy gave me courage. By the time she left, I had stopped crying, and resolved to bear up bravely—whatever might follow.
A couple of minutes later, Auntie Stacey returned. "So Julie, are you ready to tell me the truth?"
"Yes, I'm going to tell you the truth." And I repeated my story.
"Okay, I'm going to have to give you seven swats with the board. Four for saying such a terrible thing, and three for lying. And if you are innocent, take it for all the times you deserved it and didn't get caught." That was a favourite line with many of my teachers.
I took my punishment without crying. Something inside me refused to break down. But I did not forget.
The only times I saw the outside of the commune was when we went busking. Uncle Peter—Peter Pioneer, who had been a singer in
Music with Meaning
—formed us children into a singing group. He would take us out to perform in restaurants and hotels. After our show, we would go around with the literature and posters and collect donations. Often we would be out till late in the night, tired and hungry. But we were not allowed to show it.
"Now children," Uncle Peter would chide, "I want to see big smiles on your faces, or the people will think we're forcing you to sing for them. And that would be a terrible example and make Jesus very sad!"
So we put on our big Family smiles. It was not so much the fear of offending Jesus, as the threat of having rubber bands stapled to the corners of my mouth and hooked around my ears if I did not. This was graphically demonstrated to us using paperclips and rubber bands during practice one day, and the idea of it never left my mind throughout performances.
Our days out busking were extremely tiring, but I preferred being out to the tedium of staying cloistered in the house all day. Sometimes kind people would give us treats and there were always interesting things to see. Though our singing group usually managed to bring in some money, we were only a minor part of the home's "ministry." Marianne's Home boasted some of the country's best Flirty Fishers, and the women fished some of the top generals in the Marcos government. I was five years old when Cori Aquino led the coup against Marcos. Shooting erupted not far from where we were living. I could hear the gunshots as we gathered in the living room and lay spread-eagled on the floor for hours. The adults were all speaking in tongues and praying desperately, not just for our safety, but for the Marcos regime.
It did not end the way Mo intended. Cori Aquino took over the government and the Family's infiltration into the Philippine government ended not long after due to negative media exposure and the threat of wholesale deportation of foreign Family members. Mo decided to move his operations to Japan and Marianne's Home was to relocate to Tokyo, since our ministry to the military was no longer needed.
One day Auntie Stacey gathered our little group with some news. "Guess what kids? A new Family school has opened up here in Manila. Pierre and Julie, you are both invited to go. Isn't that exciting?"
In one short week, my little bag was packed, and I was sent off to attend the first Family school, the Jumbo. They told me Celeste had gone there too, but I didn't see her again for nearly three years.

It was called the Jumbo because it was a massive, maze-like structure in a giant compound with hundreds of compartments, almost like a beehive. It was the first test-tube Family boarding school. Many of the methods experimented with there were implemented in Family schools and communes around the world.
The day I arrived, I was placed in a group of thirty other five- and six-year-old children. I was six. It was the first time I had been among so many other kids my age and I was overwhelmed initially by the amount of rules we were supposed to remember. The property was huge and confusing with weird architecture. Almost every wall was a mirror, and it took time just to memorize which "mirror" was a door. The main building was in an octagonal shape, with a wooden porch that extended around the outside of the entire building. There was a separate house where the leaders lived, built in Japanese style complete with a fishpond, and an octagon-shaped pavilion that was used as a quarantine house for sick people. The garden had different levels, so that each group rotated where they would hold their exercise time; twice a week we would get to swim in the large pool. Everyone met in the giant communal dining hall for meals, and at dinner the children got to eat with their parents.
Because I didn't have a parent, I was assigned to Auntie Stacey's care once again, and spent the hour of family time with her and her daughter every evening before returning to my group for bed.
Each group was housed in giant rooms named according to the color of the carpet, with a single bathroom and shower. We slept on mattresses that folded up into low couches that we sat on during our long hours of Word time. At bedtime the couches were unfolded into a maze of mattresses that covered the entire floor, with narrow walking spaces in between.
We were not allowed to sleep with any clothes or underwear on and we had to lie on our tummies. Everywhere you looked was a naked bottom. I was very shy, so at night when we were allowed a sheet, I always covered my bum. So many naked children lying close together did nothing to discourage sexual experimentation, nor indeed, was it meant to. There was an allotted time before bed for making love.
Two brothers and a sister my age, Danny, Davie, and Anita, arrived not long after me from a World Services home where their parents worked. Danny was tall and scrawny with a mop of dirty blond curls. I thought Davie, with his brown skin and green eyes, was by far the more handsome. While in World Services, the three of them had been instructed in the mechanics of sex through watching two adults in a live class. It was the first time I had actually seen a little boy stick his penis into a little girl. I lay and watched them fascinated, till Davie sauntered over and, to my horror asked, "Would you like me to show you how to do that?" "What? No!"
"Oh come on!" He prodded. "It's fun."
Far from seeming "fun" or natural, I was sure it involved some pain, so I refused despite his persistent prompting. Eventually he lay next to me instead and told me stories about the sexual antics different adults had taught him while we watched the other two. Both Davie and Danny took a liking to me and were always joking about how they would mount me in my sleep if I did not agree to have sex with them.
"Well, I'll sleep on my stomach then!" I replied with naïve confidence.
"That's all right." Davie laughed. "We'll just have to do it to you from behind!" The picture that conjured in my imagination was quite disturbing. I had never dreamed such a thing was possible.
Our overseers took turns sleeping in our room and always brought a date. The adults went by a sharing schedule that dictated who they were to spend the night with. Many of the people I watched on the mattresses were not exactly desirable and I wondered what the adults thought of it—like the ones who stank, or the obese ones who had sweat patches under their arms. I watched plump women, with their legs propped vertically against the desk, their fat jiggling like Jello, while they rocked back and forth moaning and shouting in tongues when they came, oblivious to fifty-plus eyes watching them.
One nursing Filipino auntie had a problem with excess milk, so her solution was to line us up for "breast feeding" and everyone took a turn. Her swollen nipples were huge and black. I found the whole thing repulsive, and always refused to join the line up. Fortunately for me, it was not mandatory. Occasionally a couple of our female overseers would take some of the little boys into their beds for Cuddle Time, which involved a lot of squirming, with the little boys rocking back and forth on top while the aunties held on to their buttocks. I soon noticed many of the kids around me regularly engaged in the oddest pastime, squirming about on their mattresses. I finally asked one of my friends what it was they were doing.
"Masturbating," she told me.
"What's that?"
"I don't know exactly, but it feels really nice."
So I attempted to imitate them to see what it was that felt nice, but it never seemed to work for me. I pretended to know what they were talking about, as it was very popular and, since everybody else did it, I wanted to fit in. It was a way to pass the long nap hours.
A large section of life was spent in Quiet Times. This was the term used for nap and bedtime, when there was strictly no-talking allowed. Many hours were also spent in indefinite silence restriction. We were not allowed to talk during devotions, school, and meals. If we wanted to speak, we had to raise our finger. A bathroom call required two fingers. Three fingers would be reserved for "The Revolution for Jesus!" call.
"It's a Revolution!" could be shouted out by the teacher at any hour of the day, to which we would all respond with full gusto, "For Jesus!" At which point we produced our three-finger salute in "Heil Hitler" fashion. It was the one time we were allowed to shout, so we used the opportunity to belt at the top of our lungs. Normally we could not speak louder than a whisper.
The other half of my days was spent in school, which was what we were sent to the Jumbo for. Since we children were the future of the Family, Mo came out with a letter called "The School Vision," saying it was imperative we received the training and education needed to rule the world when Jesus returned. We were to• be the pure generation, unadulterated by the world, an improvement on the stock.
Every Sunday, everybody in the Jumbo would gather in the meeting hall for Sunday Fellowship. I always looked forward to it. There were many talented musicians and they would lead the rousing inspirations. Qver two hundred voices joined together in song made the atmosphere electrifying and sometimes I would get goosebumps. Qften people would be crying and praising in tongues as they felt the Holy Spirit come over them. Then there would be fun skits put on, which I always enjoyed most, ended by communion and prayer. Most of the skits and songs were on the topic of witnessing or the Endtime. Jesus was supposed to be coming back in 1993 according to Mo's prophecies.
I grew up believing I would be twelve years old when Christ returned. It meant I only had six years left to live. It was something of a relief to know I would not have to grow old and die. Unless, of course, I was captured by the evil Antichrist forces and they tortured me and I died as a martyr. That was my greatest fear, despite Mo's letter "Death the Ultimate Qrgasm," in which he describes a dream where he is shot, and experiences dying as a wonderful rapture, even better than an orgasm. Well, I had never had an orgasm, so that did little to assuage my fears.
I would concoct scenarios in my head of how to escape if I was captured; perhaps Flirty Fishing the soldiers like in the book
Heaven's Girl
, about a young teen girl spearheading the resistance against the Antichrist soldiers in the Endtime. The story of when they threw her to the lions always disturbed me despite the fact that her guardian angel saved her and shut the mouths of the beasts. Before she was tossed to the lions, Heaven's Girl was gang raped by the guards. But she gave her body gladly and two of the guards ended up being converted and rescuing her. But then she had to Flirty Fish an ugly, old, fat government official too, so he would help her get out of the country. I did not think I could do that.
We all discussed who Heaven's Girl was going to be. I knew I would be too young, because she was about fifteen in the story and I would only live to be twelve. Nonetheless, it remained my favourite storybook to read, because we had nothing else half interesting.
During school hours, I was sent to the Teen Group for classes. My mother was a pioneer of early learning, and by the time I was three I could read fluently, write, and work out mathematical equations. The teenagers had been deprived of education, because they had been sent out busking and fundraising as children. Now they had to catch up and I was
placed in the same class as fourteen- and fifteen-year-olds, which they naturally resented. I tried to be inconspicuous and sit quietly in the back of the room, but the teacher always insisted on calling on me, and would use me to create healthy competition in class. I hated that—I did not want to be noticed or show my classmates up in any way. When I returned to my own group, the other children resented me for having school with the teens.
Perhaps because of this, I had few close friends and was very lonely.
So, I kept a place inside my head where I could imagine anything I pleased, go on adventures, even be with my mummy and daddy again. Our teachers called it daydreaming and that was forbidden. 'An idle mind is the Devil's workshop." I had nightmares almost every night. Giant dogs and lions would chase me and I could not run because my legs were on a treadmill, so they would pin me down and eat me. Then I wet my bed. It became my private humiliation that I hated myself for. When I awoke in the night to a wet bed, I would simply take my sheet off my mattress, flip it over and get a fresh sheet. By morning the mattress would have dried and the teachers never knew whether the stain was old or new All the mattresses stank of urine anyway and had to be aired regularly. I would hardly get to sleep again before I was startled awake by the Family "Battle Hymn" blasting loudly through the intercom speakers:

By the time the anthem finished, we had to be out of bed, the sheets folded, and the mattresses tucked back into couches again, or we were likely to receive a spanking from the White Stick. This was the plastic stick that the teacher carried with him everywhere, like a magic wand. A meter long and an inch wide, it looked harmless enough, but the whiplash on your bare bottom created painful welts. After a beating you would be unable to sit comfortably for a week. Qnce it broke on one of the boy's buttocks because the teacher wielded it with such force and they had to get a new one. I mingled with many a purple bottom in the shower. You could always tell who received the most spankings because you never saw their bare bottom sans one shade of color or another. The most recently thrashed looked fresh and bloody and you could see how badly they stung when the water ran on to them and • they gave a little jump.
A milder punishment was Silence Restriction, a sentence that could be served for any length of time. I was made to walk around for days with an ignominious sign hanging about my peck that read, "Don't talk to me. I'm on silence restriction." I never spoke to some of my classmates because they seemed to be stuck on it permanently. Sometimes we had a thick piece of duct tape put over our mouths, which was only removed to let us eat.
For verbal offences like speaking out of turn, talking back, or saying something "unloving" or "un-spiritual," we would have our mouths washed out with soap. This was an old-fashioned punishment that Mo's preacher mother had practised on him. I had the bad habit of speaking my mind when I saw something unfair. My sense of justice was very strong and at times I could not help myself. I regularly gagged on soap bars. Some adults rammed the bar down my throat, others made me brush my teeth with it, but the cruellest of them made me chew it and swallow. That was usually when I gagged. Auntie Stacey especially liked using this punishment on me.
As we were everybody and nobody's kids, according to the Mo Letter "One Wife," any adult could correct you for any offence they thought you had committed. This often became confusing, as one adult could tell you to do something, and another would catch you doing it and become angry because they saw something wrong with it and punished you. If you tried to explain yourself, you would get in trouble for talking back, but if you did not obey what the first adult told you to do, you would be punished for disobedience. For the worst sins committed in front of the class, you would receive a public beating which was meant to hurt your pride as much as it hurt your rear-end. This was derived from the verse, "They who sin before all shall be rebuked before all." I received a public spanking for such offences as murmuring, arguing, talking without permission, or lying.
One day, after nap, my thin wispy hair was floating up all over the place. Pandita, who was the daughter of the school leaders, pointed it out to the other kids, laughing, "Julie looks like John the Baptist's wife with her wild hair!"
All the kids started laughing with her and I felt the blood rush to my face.
"Well you're fat and stinky!" I retorted in the heat of anger. I was feeling ill and out of sorts. Our teacher heard the commotion and pulled us out while she reported it to the head teacher, Auntie Joy. While they discussed our punishments, we sat in the closet room waiting for over an hour. I was sweating and felt dizzy. The teacher then led the entire class into the room. As it turned out my classmate who had teased me was not to receive correction with me because her parents were the shepherds of the school. The injustice infuriated me.
"But she called me John the Baptist's wife!" I cried.
"And what's wrong with that?" Auntie Joy defended her. "John the Baptist was the prophet who heralded the coming ofJesus. But for you to call someone fat and stinky is a horrible thing to say and you're going to have to take the consequences for your lack of love."
It was to be a public correction and the entire group gathered to witness it. Auntie Joy read various sections of Mo Letters and Bible verses on the subject of love, then I had to confess my sin publicly, after which the teacher ranted for what 'seemed like hours. The whole while I stood waiting in dread of the inevitable, wishing it could just be over All my peers sat cross-legged on the floor staring at me and the room was crowded and hot. I could feel my hair sticking to the sweat on my neck.
Finally the moment arrived.
"Pull down your pants."
Although we all slept and showered naked together, it was not the same being the only one undressed in front of all my peers.
Slowly, ever so slowly, I pulled down my skirt, then my panties, and turned around, placing my hands on the wall as instructed.