At this time too, the larger families of our Home were asked to move to other regular communes. Fiona and Antonio left to set up a commune in Manila with all their children. I also had to say goodbye to my friends Renee and Daniella who left with their parents, Silas and Endureth. Even though they remained in the same city it was as if they had moved to the other end of the earth. No contact was allowed between the World Services elite and the rank and file Family members. There were only four children in my age group now – Armi and myself, and Michael and Patience’s sons, Patrick and Nicki.
Although I was only nine, I was often entrusted with the care of the younger children on my own or with Armi while the adults had meetings, or during their Saturday-night movie – the one film they were allowed to watch a week. One evening, I was reading True Komix to my little sisters Mariana and Juliana before putting them to bed. For fun, I decided to play a trick on them. I slammed the book shut and sternly said, ‘Line up against the wall. You’ve both been very naughty and need a spanking.’
They were good little girls and, obediently, they did as I had said. Taking four-year-old Mariana into the bathroom, I put her over my knee, put my right hand on her bottom, and then spanked my hand. Immediately, she caught on to the joke that I was not really giving her a beating after all and began to laugh. I had a chuckle with her and told her not to tell her sister outside. ‘Okay,’ she whispered.
When I came out to call Juliana in, she was already sobbing. I expected her to get the joke too, although she was only three. I brought her into the bathroom. ‘Right, now it’s your turn,’ I said in my strictest voice.
‘No, no, please no–’ She started to get hysterical and broke out into a sweat.
I bent her over my knee and did the same as before. Only she did not get it. She screamed and begged me to stop. Immediately I stood her up and told her I was only hitting my hand and not her bottom. She kept crying and her heat rash became inflamed and her whole body slippery with sweat. I had seen her break out in the same sweat and hysterics before, when she got spankings, but for the first time I saw the panic and helplessness in her eyes. She was terrified at even the thought of another beating.
Ashamed of myself, I cooled her under the shower and then did my best to distract her and calm her down. Mariana told her that she did not get a spanking either, and finally she settled down. I felt terrible for what I had done and that night I made a resolution that I would never be physically violent towards children when I grew up, no matter what. For the first time, I understood that even children had a right to dignity and respect and saw how depraved and abusive the treatment the leaders meted out to us was. Hitting did nothing but damage a child’s fragile trust in those they looked to for love and care. I hated when I was hit across the face, knuckled on the head, or spanked, and I vowed that I would never forget.
Not long after this incident, our little family was split up. After Serena gave birth to her son, Victor, she was moved with the two girls to another World Services Home in a nearby subdivision of Manila. Victor was only three months old but he did not go with her. He was adopted by a childless couple in our Home.
I was never told the reason why Victor was given away or why Dad and Serena allowed their son to taken from them. We weren’t supposed to ask questions, but it was terribly confusing. It seemed to me that Dad and Serena were in trouble for something and this was some form of punishment. I thought that maybe after Serena left it would be just Dad and me again together, but instead Marianne told me,
‘You’ll be staying with Michael and Patience in their room.’
‘But why can’t I stay with Dad?’ I pleaded.
‘You’d be better off with Patience, who can take care of you properly.’
I resented this change. Patience was the last person I wanted to live with and I was frightened of being separated from my father, who was my only protection. But we were kept apart and I only saw him once a week, when we went to visit Serena and the girls for our Freeday.
On one Freeday, Dad and I watched a video compilation of the Benny Hill Show. In one scene Benny Hill was a news presenter and he did a play on the phrase, ‘Fish and chips’.
‘Ummm, fish and chips!’ Dad moaned, licking his lips. ‘Fish and chips wrapped in newspaper with vinegar. It’s the only thing I miss from England.’
‘Yuck!’ I exclaimed. ‘Dad, newspaper is dirty. All that ink comes off on your hands.’
He smiled and shook his head. ‘It adds to the flavour. One day, we’ll go to England and I’ll buy you English fish and chips,’ he promised.
It was the first time I heard Dad reminisce – or say anything positive about England. Mo often ranted against America and the West as ‘cesspools of iniquity’ and Dad believed that God would soon judge England for their ‘rejection of God’s children’.
Every word Mo said was taken so seriously, even down to his likes and dislikes. One of my jobs was to set the table for dinner, and one day I was instructed to lay spoons instead of forks and knives. After the meal, I asked Dad why.
‘Well, Grandpa said that all you need is a spoon.’ He went on to demonstrate. ‘You can scoop things up with it, and use the edge to cut. You really don’t need forks. The food just falls through anyway.’
‘But I like forks,’ I replied.
I thought it was ridiculous. We could not use black pepper, women could not wear jeans, and men replaced their briefs for boxer shorts, just because Mo expressed his dislike for them. Fruits and vegetables had to be soaked in salt water for twenty minutes – which made them taste awful; salt was supposed to kill the germs. Mo always boasted how frugal he was – his childhood in the Great Depression of the 1930s had left a mark on him. He could take a shower in a bowl of water, he saved stamps, and always made the most of a napkin, by first using it to wipe his mouth, then clean his glasses, then blow his nose, then finally to wipe his bottom.
Ewww, I thought when I read that. How gross.
He also declared that three sheets of toilet paper were all that you needed for a bowel movement. This became a Family rule. We were always threatened with the Scripture, ‘The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good’, and I did my hardest to fold carefully those three sheets to maximize their use. I was convinced that Jesus was there in the toilet with me, watching to make sure I didn’t use more than I was allowed. At this time I started to suspect that Mo lived nearby. His location was supposed to be top secret but I noticed that Paul Peloquin and Marianne often disappeared for a few days only to return with new rules, projects and ‘news from Grandpa’. Paul talked often about Mo’s household and would introduce new rules that he had picked up from his visits to their Home.
One evening, he announced during a meeting, ‘I want everyone to write down in order of preference who you would like to be on the date schedule with. You won’t be guaranteed that you’ll get the person you asked for, so put down your first, second and third choices.’ While the adults were given a choice, Paul arbitrarily decided my and Armi’s date schedule. We had to have a date – sex in other words – with both Patrick and Nicki, twelve and nine years old, once a week.
When Nicki and I were five years old at the campsite, I remember fooling around with him and mimicking sex like we had seen the adults do, and it was fun. I liked him. But being forced on to a schedule where I had to perform whether I wanted to or not quickly turned it into a duty. I resented being parcelled out without any consideration for how I felt or what I wanted.
Besides our dates with the boys, Armi and I were also scheduled with the adult men. Paul Peloquin would ask me to masturbate as he got off. He said it turned him on to watch me. I hated it, especially since I was afraid of him. I would imitate the motions as I had been taught, but felt nothing but fear that if I didn’t please him he would lash out in anger.
I had been taught that black was white until my normality was upside down and backwards – but there was some kind of inner spark of morality deep-seated