Not Without My Sister (23 page)

He was livid. "Don't you dare criticize her mother! I am warning you! Get out! This is my house and I won't hear a word against her!"
A general uproar followed and Nan and Papa ordered Joshua and his wife to leave the house.
That night I gave them my side of the story in detail for the first time. It was painful for us all and we never brought the subject up again.
That week Joshua sent me money to buy a new pushchair for Jordan. But I had no desire to ever see that man again. He wrote a letter to me wanting to repair the relationship and continue being my dad. He said how it had torn his heart to have lost us that day in London when Mum fled with us. I didn't remind him that he had threatened to take her children from her and send them to the cult to bring up. There was a place in my heart that pitied him, but though I had forgiven him, it was too late. The past could not be undone.

Juliana

Winds of change were blowing through the Family in the early 1990s, beginning with the announcement of Mo's death. The entire Bangkok school gathered in the large meeting hall and the letter detailing our leader's "graduation" to Heaven was read. He had died in his sleep after years of pro-longed illness with Family members around him, just like he wanted it. There was hardly a dry eye in the room; everyone around me was weeping in tongues and prayer. I knew I probably should have been joining in more, but I did not feel the least bit sorrowful. Mo was just a name without a face, a phantom whose writings dictated my life in every way, and yet as a man, prophet, or saint, he meant nothing to me. The meeting dragged on for hours with songs, anecdotes about our late prophet, prayers, and pledges of love and dedication. I was bored out of my mind.
The atmosphere was sombre for an entire week. No one was sure what the fate of the Family would be, or whether Maria, Mo's chosen heir, would rise to claim "the mantel of anointing." We heard that a new guiding law book was being written for the Family. There was a feeling of hope, that things would begin to change for the better and that Maria would modernize and improve the Family rules and way of life.
I was nearly thirteen when, during this time of uncertainty, I was given unexpected news. They were sending me to Japan to live with my dad! I had long ago given up hope of seeing Dad again and I could not believe it when I was told. At the same time, I was given a letter from my mum with a photograph of Mariana, Victor, and Lily. The letter was short, and I briefly glanced over it; it was the photo that interested me most. I stared at them—my brother and sisters—for hours. Mariana stood a head taller behind Victor and Lily. They were in a beautiful wood in Switzerland and I was sure their smiles were for me. I must have showed that picture to the entire school. My heart was so full of joy at this sudden turn of events; it was like Christmas!
The Heavenly City School housed all the stars of the modern Family of the 1990s. They were commissioned by Mo and Maria to produce new modern music and videos that the Family around the world could use for witnessing, both to sell and to air on television. In order to appeal to Systemites, and especially the youth, the Family young people dressed up and wore make-up, like they did in the outside world. It was seen as a necessary evil, to win the lost for Christ. Kiddie Viddie, Treasure Attic and other Family production videos had created a new set of young Family celebrities. It had also brought some outside or worldly influence previously absent. The Heavenly City School was the cool place to go, where the cool people gathered to out-cool each other. It took months for me to begin to fit in.
It was only after arriving at the School that I learned that Dad was not actually living there. He was in a small World Services Home in Tokyo, where he lived with his new Japan-ese wife, Sunshine, and baby son, Kingdom.
In 1995 Maria crowned herself Queen Maria in a series of letters explaining how Mo's mantel had been passed on to her. This was followed by the crowning of her new consort, King Peter or Peter Amsterdam, Mo and Maria's former business administrator. Mo loyalists found it difficult to accept the reign of a woman with a very different style from their former leader. But many of us young people in the group remained hopeful that with the change of leadership, things would get better for the second generation. It did seem, at the time, that things were loosening dramatically, and there was much more freedom of expression. It was this hope of a different future that kept many of us hanging on. I was happy to be given a certain amount of choice in my day-to-day life under the new regime. I could wear what I liked within reason; I was not watched twenty-four hours a day and marched around in a group. I was given more responsibility and more free time to myself.
Hope can be a powerful instrument in the hands of the one who can both give and withdraw it. The one with that control was Queen Maria.
After about a year, Dad left the World Services Home in Tokyo and moved with Sunshine and Kingdom to the Heavenly City School. Dad told me Sunshine was pregnant again and he was kept busy with his new family and script writing for the video productions. I only saw him occasionally at the dinner table. Although I seemed outwardly cheerful, inside I felt lost and worthless. I no longer knew where I fit in the grand scheme of things. I hated Dad. For leaving my Mum; for abandoning me; but mostly for pretending it was all okay.
The illusion worked for him. But it had never been okay for me.
I had grown up alone, and now that I finally had a parent, I was still alone, friendless, at war with the world and at war with myself I decided it was time to end the crushing rejection that had dogged my life. So convinced was I that I had been a mistake, I wrote a note giving away my belongings to one of my few friends. Then I climbed on to Dad's second-story windowsill and talked myself into jumping. The pavement below stared up at me, and suddenly it seemed a very short way down. The disjointed thought struck me that I might not die after all, and might survive as a paraplegic, or a vegetable. The thought froze me long enough for Dad to walk into the room.
He hardly glanced up as I quickly jumped back inside, wondering what he might think. But he never thought. He never even reacted.
Until I told him, "I want to leave the Family." It was only then that he panicked. I really said it to get his attention, and I did. But not in the way I imagined. When he asked me why I wanted to leave, I told him I was unhappy. His solution was to send me to India—being on the "mission field" would cure me. For Dad, out of sight was out of mind. Perhaps seeing the mess of a teenager that I was disturbed him too greatly and showed up his glaring failures as a parent. I had lost all respect for him as a father.
To the rest of the Family, anyone coming from Japan was worldly and out of the spirit. By this time, I had learned to dress to fit in. I wore cut-off jeans just over my knees, and a vest. The shepherds in India wrote a scathing letter to my dad saying I came off the plane looking like a whore. They brought me some long flowery skirts and said I could only wear feminine clothes in the spirit of a true Bible woman.
No matter where I went, I could never get it right. I had tried so hard to fit in at the Heavenly City School, arid had succeeded. Now, I was being condemned for it.
I had only been in India a few days when I came down with serious diarrhea and a dangerously high fever. I slipped in and out of delirium for a week. The only relief my stomach felt was when I hugged a scalding water thermos to it. As a result my stomach was covered in welts. I could not even keep water down. By the time I began to pull out of my sickness, I was a skeleton. The minute I was well enough to sit up and eat, I was given the usual talk. Why was God punishing me? What lessons was I learning? I had to start reading a list of Mo Letters and write reactions to whatever spiritual weak-nesses had triggered such a violent physical manifestation.
My months there were a nightmare. I worked scrubbing, cooking and taking care of kids from morning to night, or pounding the streets to sell the tapes and videos. We only had a day off every other week. There were other young people there, but the shepherds did not like me talking to them, as they were afraid I would contaminate their pure spirits.
Often, the shepherds would take me into a private room for correction—for the usual sins: rebellion, worldliness, and lack of hunger for the Word of God. It seemed to me that they just had it in for me. The Home shepherd, an Indian man named Matthew, scared me. He would shout at me until he got me to cry, and then he would smile. "Now tell me you love me. Do you love me?"
"No." I looked at him hatefully.
His eyes grew fiery and he grabbed my head with his two hands and held my face an inch from his own. "Tell me you love me, or you can't leave this room."
He played this little power struggle game until he had wrested the words out of me. Then he would kiss me all over my face and hug me for what seemed like hours before finally allowing me to leave. He tasted and smelt like curry. I would lock myself in the bathroom afterwards, hold my head back and scream silently. That gave me some small relief.
After three months of this, I was desperate to leave. Japan seemed like heaven in comparison. Every day I begged to be allowed to go back to my dad. They had failed to retrain me, so they eventually wrote to my father. telling him to come take me off' their hands; they could do nothing more for his little terror.
Dad came running to get me with fire under his ass. I tried to explain the truth, but he was having none of it. He was still a giant celebrity in India and I had disgraced his good name. He told me in no uncertain terms that he was both ashamed and disappointed in me. On this note we flew home to Japan in time for Christmas. I was looking forward to going home.
At immigration, the officers pored over our papers. They believed Dad had been working illegally in Japan and refused us entry. All the flights out of Tokyo were fully booked for days. So Dad and I were driven to prison in a caged bus.
We passed Christmas behind bars. During the day, the jail was fairly empty, and we sat in the dining hall playing snap with the guards. It was a lark watching them all stiff and serious as they stared at the pile of cards and jumped to attention with a brisk "Snapu!" when two cards matched. Dad and I became very popular with the guards. They were sym-pathetic, knowing Dad had a Japanese wife and two kids, and that we were missing Christmas with them.
After four days, we were put on a plane to Thailand. My heart sunk when I heard our destination. I was going from the frying pan back into the fire. We went back to the Bangkok Training Center. Once again, Dad left me in the Junior Teen group. He seemed relieved to have me off his hands and hardly ever bothered to check how I was doing. I caught up with my foster sister Vera, and we became close friends once again.
But the shepherds in India had blacklisted me as a potential "rotten apple" and the Central Reporting Officers gave the Training Center an immediate update on my serious state. They decided to continue my retraining where India had left off. I was put on silence restriction and worked like a slave. It was my job to sweep, mop, and buff the entire school, nearly a quarter of a mile long from end to end. This was a monumental job, by the end of which I could hardly stand up straight from bending over for so many hours.
After this, I had to wipe every window and there were hundreds. I had to keep the entire serving area, kitchen and dining room and visitor areas clean at all times. I had to work seven days a week, with no day off and no school or play. This was the only form of discipline they could inflict and they went the whole nine yards. Anything I enjoyed was forbid-den. The few times I saw Dad, I would ask when we were leaving. We were only supposed to stay a couple of weeks, but the weeks were dragging into months, and a terrible fear seized me that I might be stuck there forever.
In February, the Family-wide yearly three-day fast was held. Usually it was at this time that the newest "revelations" from Heaven were passed on. This year, we were in for a real treat. The "Loving Jesus Revelation" was revealed. There were hundreds of pages to read and it took the entire three-day fast to get through. It was revealed to us, God's chosen End-time Brides, that Jesus was lonely and craving our love. The Bible made it clear through books like the Song of Solomon, that we, God's last church, were the Bride of Christ. He wanted more of us than just to love him as a father, or even a big brother. He wanted us as His lovers.
The Revelation explained in extremely graphic detail that, in "the spirit," we were all women, regardless of our physical gender. Even men could make love to Jesus in the Spirit.

The letters gave many examples of how to Love Jesus. But the ultimate expression was Loving Jesus when having sex with a partner. You were each to pretend your partner was Jesus and to shout out how hot and horny you were for God's Dick and Jesus would indeed be there, possessing the other person in the flesh.
I thought it was the strangest doctrine to date. I wanted to laugh at its absurdity, but of course, I did not dare. This new "revelation" was not mandatory, but something people could slowly become used to in their own time. I was relieved. As minors, we were only to Love Jesus up to masturbation. However, we were told that Loving Jesus together as a Home would increase our unity as One Wife.
When many of the adults shouted out in prayer sessions how sexy Jesus was and how badly they wanted his seeds, I just kept quiet. It went beyond unorthodox in my eyes; it rather seemed sacrilegious. We had just come out of serious court cases, and I had thought we were finally going to be more nor-mal, doing good works and telling people about Jesus.
But with a strange belief like this, who would ever take you seriously as a religious organization?
To sort out our visa woes, Dad and I flew to the UK. Dad was changing his passport so he could enter Japan again, with a new name and a clean record. Because I was not allowed to
change my name, as I was minor, Dad informed me that I would not be able to return to Japan with him. I walked out-side the British Embassy while Dad was filling in forms, and sat down on the pavement feeling like a lost orphan. I just stared at the feet walking by me, and thought that I was just one of billions of feet walking this planet. One pair less wouldn't matter. I must have looked desperately sad because three different people stopped to offer a word of cheer. I just wanted to be left alone.
Dad decided to send me to my mum who was living in the south of France. She would help me change my passport so I could try to re-enter Japan. Mum, Victor, Lily and Mariana, my family I did not know, met me off the plane. When I walked out of the terminal, I knew who Mum was immediately, even though I had not seen her in ten years. She was smiling from ear to ear and she gave me a huge hug. Time had been good to her, and unlike Dad she still looked young, without a single gray hair. "Look at you! You're so beautiful!" She exclaimed proudly. I was nervous, but my brother and sisters put 7 right at ease. They were living in a gite in the beautiful French countryside. Mum had remarried a French man named Luke and they had a daughter Corina together.
But my biggest shock came when I discovered there was a third partner in their marriage. Her name was Crystal. She was madly in love with Luke and Luke was madly in love with Mum and the three of them were living in a tangled triangle.
Crystal had known my parents back in Loveville in Greece. She had run the Detention Teen program in Macau where Mene was tortured. One of the other detained teens there was Ben Farnom, who committed suicide shortly after.
Crystal was now no longer in a leadership position. This made her insecure and she took it upon herself to shepherd our little family, gathering us daily for Word Time and lectures. We begrudged this intrusion into our lives and our family. She was constantly belittling Mum and saying that our dad had been hers first, rubbing it in that if she hadn't been sent away from him in Greece, none of us would be alive today.
I stayed outdoors as much as I could with Lily, Victor and my stepbrothers and sisters. It was the first time that I had been allowed to run relatively free and we would take long hikes up the river that ran behind the house, explore old empty houses, or build pine lodges in the woods. For the first time, I got to know my little brother and sister.
Which was more than I could say for Mum. She had longed for the day when I would come back to her, but it was not playing out as she had imagined. Mum had not realized that by leaving me so young, she had severed the bond that would otherwise have grown between us. It was not that I did not love her; I did, very much. I simply did not display any attachment to her, and the disappointment cut her deeply.
Eventually because of this, she withdrew from me, hardly daring even to hug me, for fear I would pull away. She felt the guilt of leaving me, and imagined I hated her for it. In reality, I was not sure how to react to my mother, who I did not know and could not talk to. I felt the invisible barrier between us, but did not know how to remove it. I was no longer a cuddly child who could nuzzle into her neck. I was an angry and confused teenager who never seemed to belong anywhere—not even in my own family. I did not share any memories with my brothers and sisters, which left me on the outside of many conversations. I was the eternal outsider.
One day, a solution occurred to me. I could simply remove myself completely. I had already balanced on the edge of Dad's windowsill, but this time, I felt ready to jump. One day when everyone was taking a siesta, I took the kitchen knife and locked myself into the bathroom.
I sat on the floor and began sawing with the blade across my wrist. To my irritation the knife was blunt. I sawed frantically at my wrist, but the knife would hardly pierce my skin. Eventually I managed to cut a ribbon of flesh, but I could not get it deep enough to cut the vein. I felt squeamish and scared of the pain.
I gave up, lay down on the bathroom floor and cried till I fell asleep. I was ashamed that I was too cowardly to live and ashamed that I was too cowardly to die. I woke up in a pool of sweat. The heat in the tiny room was suffocating. I snuck upstairs, and bandaged up my wrist. I always wore long sleeves, so no one ever noticed.
Once my passport was changed, I returned to the Heavenly City School in Japan. After a few months, news came from Mum that my stepbrother, Philippe, had died from a brain tumour. He was only fourteen and his passing hit me hard. I was overwhelmed with guilt. I had not got to know him as well as I might have, and now I would never have that chance. He might not have been my blood brother, but he was still part of my family and I should have cared more. But more than anything, I felt angry with myself that I could not cry. Not long after Philippe's death, Windy, a girl I had known in Japan, committed suicide. These two deaths affected me deeply. I had always grown up thinking the world would end before I got too old. Now I decided if all our lives would end anyway, whether through unexpected death, or when the world ended, then what was the point of anything?
I kept up a correspondence with my foster sister Vera after leaving Thailand and I spilt my guts to her in a letter, telling her just to "live and let live," because all we had to look forward to was death. Much of the pain I was feeling went into that letter. If I had known my Correspondence was being censored, I would never have written what I did. A couple weeks later, I received a letter from my former foster parents, Joseph and Talitha. They said they did not want me writing to them or Vera any more. I was a negative influence on Vera, and they made it clear that they no longer considered me a daughter. This letter wounded me deeply. Once I had given up all hope of seeing Dad again, I clung to them as my family. This sudden cold rejection was like a slap in the face.
After this something in my heart shut down. I no longer wanted to let anyone near me to avoid the pain people I cared about inevitably brought me. I became profoundly angry and sometimes erupted in violent outbursts. If people did not seem to like me, I no longer saw any point in making myself likeable. My personal hygiene went out the window. I wore my hair in an unbecoming bob, so I would not have to brush it. I was always looking for fights and one day even hurled my teacher across the dining-room table, which broke in two.
I lost all my friends. No one gave me the time of day unless they were cheering me on in a fight. I was too tall, too rowdy and had a mouth like a machine gun without a safety
switch. My sarcastic wit became a defense to hide my lack of self-esteem. It is little wonder I was on the school list of "the last ten people in the world to be caught hanging out with."
I rarely saw Celeste. Even Dad stopped caring whether I came down to dinner or not, which was the only time he might see me. I needed to get away. One day, a notice on the school bulletin board caught my attention. A Family couple in Tokyo needed help with their children. I applied and was accepted for the three-month post.
I was met at Shinjiku station by a young man named Marcus, who lived at my new Home. I was pleased I was not going to be the only young person there. Marcus quickly developed more than a mild interest in me. I was completely uninterested, however. No one had ever liked me in that way, and I did not read the signs of attraction because I had no experience in reading them.
The couple's oldest son, Miguel, came to visit. He had left the Family shortly before and worked at a bar in Tokyo. He was handsome and I was flattered by the way he openly stared at me. It was a new feeling for me, and although I did not understand it, I knew I liked the attention and perhaps unconsciously even encouraged him. Nevertheless, it was a surprise to wake up in the middle of the night and discover him in my bed. He was tugging at my panties, his hot breath reeking of cigarettes.
"No," I whispered quickly.
"No?" He was rubbing himself frantically against me. "No."
"C'mon, you want me. I know you're hot for me."
I was still half asleep and a part of me was telling myself, this is all a funny dream.
"Don't. The kids," I mumbled in protest. His brothers and sisters slept in the same room as me and I hoped this would stop him.
"Then you'd better be quiet."
I was too terrified to do anything but lie there silently, and the dream continued like a nightmare for the next two hours. When he finally pulled away I was raw and in pain.
Early the next morning I slunk out of the house, took my bike and stayed out all day until I was certain he'd left. Sex with an outsider was an excommunicable offence at most and a partial excommunication at least. The thought of being excommunicated, especially for something that had been forced on me, was terrifying. I was only fifteen after all.
I decided to keep the nightmare in my chest of secrets that I locked inside my head. Only, secrets have a way of revealing themselves.
In my case it was sooner rather than later. The next day, in fact. Marcus came home from work and barred my way at the head of the stairs with a beefy arm.
"What's up, Marcus?" I tried to sound casual, but my voice betrayed my concern.
"You little slut!" He spat. "You don't even know him and you jump into bed with him the first night."
"I don't know what you're talking about. We didn't do anything."
"Really? He said you were panting like a little bitch in heat. He said you wore him out, you could not get enough like an insatiable whore." This lie hurt even worse than the actual rape.
"What! He's just telling you that to make you jealous." There was a terrible heat behind my eyes and the room was spinning around me.
"I'm going to report you, and you know what'll happen then. You're in big shit now."
"Marcus, it wasn't like that. He forced me," I tried to explain.
"Bullshit. I don't believe you." Nor did he want to, because he had his own agenda.
"Look, believe me or not, it's true. Please, I'll do any-thing; just don't report me. It wasn't my fault."
"Of course it was your fault and you're right about one thing; you will do anything, or I will report you."
He came to my bed that night, and every night after. Sometimes I tried to pretend I was asleep, or on my monthly, or feeling sick. Eventually he stopped buying my excuses. My life there became a misery, so I jumped on a train back to the Heavenly City School.
When I arrived back, one of the teen shepherds approached me.
"What are you doing back here?"
I was shocked by the question. I had always thought the school was my home.
"You didn't ask permission to come back. We don't even have a bed for you."
"I can sleep on the floor."
They quickly found work for me, however, I could hardly manage to take care of myself much less eleven rowdy kids from nine in the morning to seven at night. After a few months I was bordering on a nervous breakdown and asked for a break.
I was sent to work in the Nursery instead. Here, I was frequently on my own with four young babies, which was not easy. Then the two shepherds in charge of the teachers summoned me.
"We've been having trouble with some of the children using bad language," they said.
"Oh?" I could not see where this was going.
"We feel that you are probably the one responsible, so we're going to have to ask that you step down from your ministry in childcare."
I was shocked by their logic. "I work in the Nursery all day. How in the world could I be responsible for children who I don't even see using bad language?" I said.
"We prayed about it, and the Lord showed us that you're to blame."
I thought that was ridiculous. Why did they always use the Lord when they needed an excuse to do something?
"It just seems that there's a lot of lessons you need to be learning and you could best learn them elsewhere where you can't be a negative influence on the kids."
I just kept quiet. If I was honest with myself; I did not mind being taken off childcare. I was tired. What hurt was the way I was being sacked after working very hard with very little help.
"Instead of Childcare, you can report to staff. Maybe a bit of physical labor will do you good."
"A bit of physical labor" meant joining the men renovating the park, hauling blocks of cement from the construction area.
I ran outside into the fields where no one could hear me and wept bitterly. "Why, God," I screamed to the sky, "do you hate me? Why does everyone hate me? What have I done?" I was having it out with the great Creator this time. "Why is life so hard to live? Do you enjoy seeing my pain? Do you enjoy seeing me suffer? Speak to me! Are you even there? Why don't you ever answer! God, I'm your child, speak to me!"
But no answer ever came. Maybe God had turned his back on me too.
All the biggest singers and musicians from around the world were gathering in Japan for an artists' summit at the Heavenly City School. There was a big push to start recording Loving Jesus Music—love songs to Jesus. King Peter was visiting the biggest communes around the world to make his and Queen Maria's presence felt, and he was going to attend.
I was working on some art project for the school when King Peter walked by with his entourage. The first thing that struck me was his towering height. He wore his long hair in a ponytail and was trying to dress hip in jeans. I knew they were trying to give the Family a new image of modern, cool and endearing leaders. King Peter showed photographs of Queen Maria. This was the first time most of us had seen what she looked like and I was shocked when I looked at the pictures of Queen Maria posing naked or in a skimpy negligee. Supposedly, this was to show her revolutionary spirit.