Not Without My Sister

by Kristina Jones, Celeste Jones, Juliana Buhring

  The name Kiron was chosen, which means "ray of light" in Bengali, though we just called him "Bubs." We made a tape to share the news with our grandparents, and our new baby brother screamed in the background. We all adored him even though he cried a great deal. There was a never-ending round of nappies and bottles to wash. It was unbearably hot and I would often sit and fan Kiron to keep him cool.

  I was always required to be looking after someone, staying busy and being a shining example to my brothers and to everyone I met. I had to become a sales woman and, with so much practice, I became very good at it and would always meet my quota. But putting on a smiling face and having to suppress my feelings and emotions put me under such stress I started to wet the bed again; some of the problem was that I found it difficult to navigate myself to the toilet in the pitch black. I would think that I had found my way to the toilet only to discover it was a dream. When Joshua discovered my accidents, he would humiliate me, and threaten to put me back in nappies.

  Even as small children we were told we would be persecuted for our faith, and this seemed to be confirmed when the Chief of Police pounded on our door and demanded to be let in. My brothers and I were terrified that the Antichrist's forces were coming to kill us. Mum told us to sit quietly in the bedroom. When Joshua came home, he let him in. The Chief of Police said the government had decided Dad's Music with Meaning show was "subversive and a front for the CIA." We had twenty-four hours to leave the district. All six Family homes in Calcutta packed up and fled. We traveled south by train to join a home in Bubanishwa.

  By now Mum was under severe mental stress because of ;Joshua's constant cruelty towards her, and I was very worried about her and what would happen to us. She had left Joshua twice before in England, but he had persuaded her to go back to him on both occasions. She snapped once again,.and one traumatic day she took Kiron and me to a cheap hotel for the night. "Mum—what about David and Jonathan?" I asked, worried that they were left with Joshua who would be so angry he'd take it out on them.

  I don't think Mum even heard me. She had a frozen, exhausted look on her face and seemed to be sleepwalking.

  The next day we boarded a train to Bombay—and I knew she was thinking of getting a plane home, though I had no idea how she would manage it. The train stayed stuck in the station as we sweated in steamy heat. When—when would it leave? Half of me willed it to go; the other half of me was terrified that Joshua would suddenly arrive, rampaging. And I was frantic with worry over my abandoned brothers.

  "Don't be upset, Mum," I tried to comfort her, but she was lost in her own world.

  We sat and waited, but the train just did not move. Suddenly, Mum stood up and said, "Grab the pushchair." She held on tightly to Kiron and we got off the train, just as the engine started up. My eyes welled up with tears as the whistle blew and the train chugged out of the station. Instead of running away, Mum took us to the area shepherd's commune to speak with the shepherds, Uriah and Katrina. When we turned up, Katrina was away and so we slept in Uriah's room; Kiron and I on the floor, and Uriah and Mum in the bed. The next morning when I woke up, Mum and Kiron were not there.

  "Good morning sweetie, come up here," Uriah said, as he patted the bed beside him. Obediently, I crawled slowly on to the bed.

  He pulled me towards him and I could smell his bad morning breath as he directed my hand on to his penis and started to kiss me. I was naked and he put me on top of him when I heard a knock on the door. I went rigid.

  "Come in!" Uriah said casually, and to my embarrassment, a man poked his head around the door.

  "Good morning, God bless you brother!" he said breezily, "Do you want some coffee?"

  "Yes, sure," Uriah answered. By this time, I had slunk off to one side of him, and hid my face under his armpit. "Do you want anything, Nina?" he asked me.

  "Some water, please," I answered in a whisper.

  When the man left the room, Uriah placed me back on top of him, and continued kissing me passionately so it was hard to breathe. I had to masturbate him with both my hands, and holding my head, he directed it down and put his penis in my mouth. I closed up my mind and carried on the physical performance mechanically as he told me what a good lover I was. My neck hurt and I gagged when he came.

  Uriah arranged for Mum, Kiron and me to go and stay in another commune for a while. Shortly afterwards we attended a local area meeting which was held in a hotel for three days. While there Mum agreed to return to Joshua, as she felt that she had no choice but to keep the family together. A few months later Uriah gave me a little card with a letter addressed, "To Nina, so sweet, loving, and sexy." When I got the card, I hid it, but Mum found it.

  "Nina, why would he send you this?" she asked, surprised.

  I hung my head, embarrassed, and shuffled my feet.

  I became used to abuse—and sometimes it even happened during "devotions." An uncle would place me on his lap and I started to notice the telltale signs of an erection when they jiggled me up and down in time to the music.

  I was aware that Mum was under great pressure to share and that Joshua was always chasing the other "Family" women. Sharing was an emotional minefield, and I knew Mum struggled with sharp feelings of jealousy, as Joshua also did at times.

  While she was still breastfeeding Kiron, Mum became pregnant again with her sixth child, and as usual, it was tough. Family children were supposed to be seen but not heard and Kiron would wail loudly when she tried to take him off the breast. So to keep him quiet, she continued to nurse him, which weakened her further. She spent hours in bed. By now, Joshua made it no secret that he was in love with Auntie Crystal. She was involved in a long-term threesome with two married Family members. The leaders had noticed his violent mood swings and his Jekyll and Hyde personality, and said he was too volatile to be allowed to join Crystal and her family who were being sent to set up a "Babes" home for new disciples in Mysore. I suppose they thought his jealousy might lead to a bad scene. They told him that Mum and we children could stay—but Joshua never told us. He was so determined to be near Crystal that he took us all to live in a hotel in Mysore. We were cut off from our friends while he went to see Crystal every day.

  This was hard on Mum. By now she was heavily pregnant and couldn't take us out—so we were stuck in a tiny, hot room for most of the day, bored out of our heads. But it seems that the Family leadership had noticed our situation and grew concerned. After a few weeks they sent us far away from Crystal, to Goa in the south. The journey in the train was fantastic. We hung our heads out the window most of the way. As we chugged up the mountainside, the train turned a bend and we were rewarded with the sight of a giant waterfall cascading down into the lush vegetation below. When the train idled at each station, groups of women in colorful saris would Other outside the windows selling "char—a sweet, spiced tea, chappatis, bananas and all manner of tasty Indian treats.

  I was so excited when my sister Rosemarie was born in November 1985. With her pale complexion and straw-berry blonde curls, she looked like a little porcelain doll. Everybody loved her and we affectionately called her "baby doll." After her birth, Mum and Joshua's relationship deteriorated badly. Mum was jealous because he was having an affair with a sister in the home and Joshua hated her for her jealousy.

  The leaders sent Mum away on a road trip even though Rosemarie was still a baby and one dreadful day I walked into our room to find Joshua bending over baby Rosemarie on the changing table. It was obvious what he was doing and a hand of ice gripped my heart.

  I heard him coo to Rosemarie, "When you're old enough, we're going to make love like your sister Nina."

  Despite being indoctrinated into radical sexual beliefs, I was disgusted. I did not want my baby sister to suffer what he had done to me. I approached slowly, mumbling that I would take over putting her nappy back on. I kept her close to me until Mum returned. Two-year-old Kiron missed Mum when she wasn't around and was spanked for being clingy—all this contributed to making me anxious if I did n
ot know where my brothers and sister were at all times throughout the day. I was a nine-year-old girl, heading for a nervous breakdown.

  Now that Joshua had his own children, Kiron and Rose-marie, he became even more cruel and spiteful towards David, Jonny, and me. He constantly teased David about the gap in his teeth, calling him "Beaver," which made him self-conscious. Unfortunately, I needed glasses and would often squint. Whenever he caught me, he would slap me, saying, "You look like a rat when you do that," and often called me "rat face." I could take that. What I could not handle was when he teased Jonathan mercilessly about his dark looks, knowing full well that Jonathan was one of Mo's "Jesus Babies," born as the result of Mum's Flirty Fishing.

  Whenever Joshua heard the fruit seller pass, shouting, "Mango, mango" He would mock heartlessly, "Ho, Mango Boy—there's your dad calling for you."

  Finally, to stop the bullying over my squinting at least, I told Mum I needed glasses. They took me to the eye clinic in Madras, which was a long trip. I was thankful when I got my glasses and no longer squinted. But the bullying and mocking just took a different shape.

  Joshua found a spacious house in Margao, a town in the district of Goa, one mile from the beach. It was a natural paradise. Mum made sure we walked to the beach every day for a swim in the ocean. I would walk along the sands comforted by the sound of vast waves crashing in, bringing in all manner of crabs and sea life.

  Once, I was resting under the shade of the coconut trees on the shore, gazing out at the sea, when a friendly foreign couple came to chat with us. We were talking about their home in Canada when I spotted our carer striding quickly towards us, mouthing, "Selah!" This was the code word that meant our security was in danger and we needed to split. I had to say a quick goodbye, and the woman slipped me their address and phone number with an invitation to visit them if I ever found myself in Canada. We were marched home through the back roads, to make sure we weren't being followed. The adults were suspicious of every-one and security measures were extreme, bordering on paranoia.

  One day during devotions, an elephant walked up our drive and stood outside our living-room window. The magnificent creature began to empty his bladder on the sandy ground while staring in at us through the window. A real life elephant in our garden—we were all excited! Mum halted devotions and we all piled outside to gawk at this unusual event. We were so small that the elephant appeared gigantic at such close quarters. But we weren't scared—his eyes were wise and gentle. It took him a further fifteen minutes to finish his business.

  "Look we have our own pond!" I joked, pointing at the massive puddle.

  "Can we keep him, can we keep him?" Kiron, who was two, asked, his eyes bright with excitement as he hopped about from foot to foot.

  "Don't be silly," Jonathan, a more knowledgeable four-year-old replied.

  The trainer emerged from the palm trees, running towards us, frantically waving a colorful stick in the air and making clicking sounds. He chided our new animal friend sternly, imploring him not run away again or to pee in people's gardens. He apologized to us and rode his charge away.

  The elephant heralded in a wonderful surprise later that day, when Mum called us into her room. We gathered around her on the bed as she glanced up, her face smiling and happy.

  "I've got a package from Celeste," she said.

  My heart jumped as I stared at the little parcel. It had already been opened—all our letters were censored—but I was still full of joy. This brought Dad and my big sister closer.

  "What's in it—can we see? Open it quickly!" I urged. I noticed that there weren't the usual UK stamps. (Our letters usually came via the UK; I had a large collection of stamps by now—all I had of Celeste, and a faint memory of speaking with her and Dad on the phone when we were in England.)

  The younger ones crawled for a position nearest Mum on the bed while she made a huge fuss of opening it. Celeste sent a pair of panties she'd made in her sewing class and a letter with a striking drawing of two mountains. On one peak Celeste stood, all alone, and on the other was Mum, David and me. In the speech bubble Celeste was crying out "Mum!" and we were calling "Celeste!" We noticed Dad was not any-where in the picture. She had also made an A to Z with pictures cut out from posters and Mo Letters to help Kiron learn to read.

  After that, when I had the time, I would write letters to Celeste and Dad. Sometimes they replied and when I got a letter of my own, it was a glorious, red-letter day and I walked around, my heart singing.

  Dad wrote, "Nina, you're a shining example working for the Lord. We'll all be together again soon in the Millennium after Jesus' return. It won't be long now!"

  I would fall asleep happily and dream I was running into my daddy's arms; he would scoop me up and kiss me and everything would be perfect.

  But dark clouds were ahead. One day the regional shepherdess came to visit the Home. She and the Home shepherdess had a meeting with Mum in which they falsely accused her of not working hard enough in the Home. They told her that she was being demoted to Babes' status—what beginners were called. Mum hadn't been a Babe since she had first joined the Family and she was shocked and mortified.

  The punishment and shame was worse than even she thought. Our whole family was to return to the UK—which along with all other Western countries was considered to be "the pit," a place fit only for backsliders and un-spiritual, half-hearted Family members.

  "Nina, this is terrible. I can't believe I am being shamed like this," Mum wept.

  I patted her hand. "It's all right, Mum, it's all right," I said, but inwardly I was alive with hope. I was going home! I would see my nice grandparents again.

  We took the train to Bombay, where we lived hand-to-mouth while waiting for Granny and Granddad to send us the airfare back to England. When the money came, instead of buying regular tickets, Joshua thought he could save some cash when a Family couple who had recently arrived in India with their five children offered to sell us their return tickets for a cheap price.

  On Christmas Eve, we got up at 3 a.m. to go to the air-port. Soon I would see Granny and Granddad and my Mum's younger sister, Auntie Caryn, again! But I tried hard to hold back my excitement because Joshua was livid at having to leave the mission field—and somehow it was our fault. Everything was our fault—never Joshua's. When we finally got to the front of the line at the check-in desk, the lady looked at our tickets. She called in her supervisor, who called one of the immigration officers. The officer explained sternly that the names on the tickets were not the same as the names on our passports.

  Joshua implored the man to change his mind, and although he was sympathetic, there was nothing he could do. If they let us fly, we would be arrested and put in jail when the plane touched down in Bahrain. We waited at the airport terrace in desperate prayer while Joshua tried to resolve the crisis. We watched luggage being loaded on to the plane through the window, growing more anxious by the minute. To our horror, the plane started taxiing down to the runway. In tears, we watched it take off, just as the sun came up.

  I ran to the ladies room and bawled my eyes out. I had so looked forward to spending Christmas with my grandparents again. Now it wasn't going to happen. We were all in shock as we took a taxi to a cheap hotel. We had no money at all because Joshua had spent the profit from the cheap tickets on new clothes and shoes, so he took us children over the road to the Salvation Army hostel for a traditional Christmas lunch—and soon we moved into the hostel itself. My poor Mum had to go Flirty Fishing again to pay the bills. She hated it but had no choice.

  When we had first arrived in Bombay my mother wrote a letter appealing to the leadership to let us stay in India. Several weeks after the aborted departure a reply was finally received which granted us this permission. So in March 1986, we were sent south to Madras to a large commune with many families. Later that year, in September Mum discovered she was pregnant for the seventh time. She never complained, but she must have always dreaded it. She was bedridden once again, unable to keep
down food or water.

  Not long after the Home shepherds informed Mum that she was to be sent back to England without any of her children. They insinuated that because she was not bright and cheery there was something spiritually wrong with her. They did not seem to understand that after six weeks of not eating Mum was still very weak and not back to her normal self. They told her that she had no rights over us children because we belonged to the Family and God. However, she begged them to let her take the two youngest, Kiron and Rosie. For fifteen years she had given her life to the Children of God, and now they judged she was a bad apple? I did not understand. She was the nicest person I knew. Why had it not been Joshua? My world was turned upside down. Joshua was given the choice to go with her but he chose not to. I couldn't believe this.