I had dreams of Mama holding my head, rocking me and speaking to me, encouraging me to push through the fever. Her voice was sweet and delicate, her faint Hamburg accent calling me back, begging me not to leave her there alone. Then silence, more dreary fog and more days passed. Late one evening, I awoke from my dreams. Shanda was sitting on my bed. The room was terribly dark, making it impossible to tell what time of day it was. As she talked, I recognized the individual who had tediously and kindly sponged away my fever. I looked around the medical unit for the special place where Father housed the ones he could never trust again. I was fortunate enough to leave once I was better. Shanda, however, would one day be condemned to this place, until her life was taken.
A new life was about to begin for me. I had learned something important from the warriors on my pillow: There is no etiquette in war, no boundaries that are sacred. Those who were lucky enough to live rode fast and furiously from the flames.
Although weak, I was released from the medical unit and allowed to resume some of the activities in the camp. Shanda must have reported my condition to Father because he assigned me to the radio room rather than to the hard work in the fields.
“It is high time you learn the new codes anyway,” Father advised. “You’ve been with me two months and you’re due to return to the States soon.” I wanted to jump for joy, but I only nodded my head and replied respectfully.
“Yes, Father.”
There were two different radio shifts, each with vastly different codes. Transmissions between Jonestown and the capital, Georgetown, were scheduled from 7 A.M. to 6 P.M. They dealt with Temple leadership meetings at various ministries and embassies. Every function and meeting with an official in Georgetown was attended by three or more articulate Temple representatives, who would immediately type up and report every aspect of the meeting to Jonestown: what they said, what they looked like, whether they were attracted to us, or not. What our reply was to their comments, how we countered what they said in order to get more information from them. It was called feedback. Everyone had a code name, every department had a code, and the person relaying the information spoke in covert language. If, for example, Sharon had gone to the Cuban Embassy that morning, spoken with the ambassador and obtained helpful information, the transmission would be: “Anne went to Netty’s house today and had a pleasant and informative conversation with her Mother. She is very supportive of our issues.” This message sent to Jonestown would be reported to Jim when he came up that evening to begin the night communications with San Francisco. When I first arrived in Jonestown, the day shift was run by Maria and the night shift by Jim and Carolyn.
The night shift began at 7 P.M. and continued until 4 A.M. Father explained that he wanted me to learn how to operate the ham radio and to master all our codes and frequencies so that on my return to the States, I could take charge of the San Francisco radio room. In his paranoia, he had become fearful of those members still in the States who were no longer under his powers. He understandably wanted one of his own to manage the San Francisco radio room, someone from here who knew and understood our impending doom and had experienced the death threats from the mercenaries. Father needed someone with “his mind” to coordinate messages, give orders, and disseminate information. On my return to the States I would be his liaison.
There was an elaborate vocabulary that had to be memorized, but I quickly became adept at giving and interpreting secret transmissions. Here, too, nothing was said in plain language, everything was in code so that outsiders, ham radio operators, and government provocateurs, could not decipher our messages. Ham radio operators would often intercept our conversations just to say hello. That’s when we would use a code to switch frequencies and lose them. It turned out we were in violation of international FCC regulations concerning amateur radio transmissions because we often fled into military restricted areas for quick coded messages. Concerned operators complained because we were always disappearing from the frequency band when they began their friendly conversation, called “Qso” or “Qso-ing.”
If our operator said, “I’ve got to see Mary,” it meant to go up 81 kilocycles. If she said, “I have to water the plants,” that meant to go down 31 kilocycles. When both operators were on the new frequency, the lead operator would cautiously whisper, “Go up 35.” Of course no outside listener could follow these antics and the frequencies were switched repeatedly during delicate negotiation plans.
We spoke mainly of the United States, Cuba, and the Soviet Union, whose code names were Rex, Netty, and Shirley respectively, as there had been an increased interest in trying to immigrate to a Communist country. A typical communication such as “Send us more guns and ammunition” sounded like this: “Give Lilly a message for me. Hold on, I have to go see Mary.” (Go up 81 kilos.) “Tell her to send … Wait, I have to water the plants.” (Go down 31 kilos.) “Okay, meet you at 15.” (Go up 15 kilos.) “Send Bibles and toys for the kids.”
At first, I began to work with Maria in the mornings to get a sense of the radio’s workings, the nuances of frequency changing, and the Georgetown codes. Then I began staying up with Father and Carolyn after my day with Maria. By dusk, the sun was no longer creating interference with long distance receptions and transmissions. It generally took an hour to secure contact. Night communications were always interesting as Father was requesting help from friends in the States, and determining how bad the conditions were with the press and what the CIA was investigating.
One morning, after a week of being solo on the day shift, Father entered the room on his way to check in on the children’s Russian history classes.
“Give us a full report this afternoon, Lieutenant.” He brushed my cheek with his finger, smiled, and left. I had become the interior’s coordinator and only liaison between Jim and our members in the capital. As the weeks passed and I became more skilled, I gained more respect from Jim. He was impressed with my ability to field questions, solve problems, suggest alternatives if they were needed. He became increasingly dependent on my opinions about how things were going in the capital, how people were responding to his orders, and how problems should be solved.
My written reports of my interpretations of events became a source of information for Jim to use and base decisions upon. Slowly and perceptibly my stature rose. Finally, I was part of the team again. I was even invited to visit Jim’s unit, where he lived with Carolyn, Maria, and the two young boys.
Father’s living conditions were extravagant in comparison to the rest of ours. Besides the privacy fence surrounding the living quarters, there was a wide porch. Father had his own room, with a double bed and wonderful accessories like an electric floor lamp. There were books and magazines on the beds as well as newspapers strewn on the floor. I was shocked. The only paper the residents ever saw were the scraps of paper we were allotted on our way to the latrine. Father had his own refrigerator and inside were fresh hard boiled-eggs, soft drinks, and snack foods, the names of which I had long forgotten. Jim’s unit had a double bed and a long, graceful mosquito net hung from the ceiling, flowing down and sweeping across the floor. I noticed medications, well organized, on a shelf next to the window. There, untouched and waiting for use, stood my mother’s anti-nausea syrup and almost all of her pain medication. There were tall bottles, green ones and odd-shaped bronze ones, and prescriptions with other individuals’ names on the labels. There was a fan on the floor, blowing cool air about the room; a small ribbon tied to his bedpost was slightly swaying in the breeze. Father’s bed had pillows in different sizes, delicately placed at the head of the bed, and cotton sheets had been pulled downward tightly and tucked into the corners of his mattress. A fluffy earth-toned throw rug lay on the floor and Father’s black slippers were waiting patiently to be engaged again.
Maria, Carolyn, and the boys’ room was more like mine, with bunk beds. But they had a private shower with a bench and a ledge holding bottles of shower gel, shampoo, and a razor with fresh blades. Several yards awa
y was a single-unit one-seater latrine. I walked inside. It was silent … no furious green-tinted flies buzzing about. And next to the clean seat I saw a mirage, a roll of soft white toilet paper. The confiscated contraband taken from our luggage, earmarked for the elderly, was at my fingertips. What a treat to use this treasured item instead of the scraps of magazine pages we were allotted.
I walked away from their cloistered, secretive, and fenced-in world, feeling jealous. How come they lived better than the rest of us? My breathing became quicker, as I ran toward my cabin. How come we could not live like Father? Where, I wondered, was all the money going? Perhaps it was needed for another immigration. We had offered the Soviet Union a couple million dollars to allow us safe passage. I stopped my grumbling as I approached my own cottage. I was lucky, I reminded myself, to be in a privileged cabin.
Reaching my hut, I heard Lew’s tape deck playing.
“Hey, want a bite of an egg sandwich?” Lew proposed.
“Lew, how’d you get this?”
“Friend in the kitchen … Want a bite?”
Living with Father’s sons made my life a little more enjoyable. I trusted them, they could be funny, and for some reason Lew always had food.
As dusk descended, Father’s tired voice came over the loudspeaker.
“Tonight please, children, go to bed early; it’s been a difficult week and you need your sleep.”
“Well, thank you, Jim.” Stephan coughed as he hopped down from a bunk.
I jumped up in delight that we didn’t have a socialism class, and Lew’s contraband egg sandwich flew into the air. He yelled and our chase to save it aroused Tim and Jimmy from their bunks. The four of us made a sport of sharing what was left. Jimmy restarted the Marvin Gaye tape, “What’s Going On.” Soft melancholy music drifted down around us as Beth strolled up.
“Alan, check out the sunset …” Lew gasped.
The evening sky had turned a brilliant magenta. We moved outside and sat on the stair. Lew hummed along to “Mercy, Mercy Me” and rubbed Beth’s neck.
We stared at the sky as it grew dark. With little noise the boys put on their fatigues and took off to protect the compound. Beth and I remained outside on the stair, listening to the voices of other residents bedding down for the night, no doubt relieved we had been given a night of rest. I thought of Papa and Annalisa, Tom, and Larry, who still remained in the United States. I wondered if any of them had written to me or had I, too, been forgotten, like my other Jonestown brethren?
Late that night, I had a dream. I was staring into the Pavilion. Beautiful green, red, and purple flowers were weaving their way through the Pavilion, through the fence and onto the wooden benches. Life was working its way back into our arid, deadened space. My eyes were fixed upon Father’s armchair and tears streamed down my cheeks. There were no flowers there. Not a single plant had risked attaching its tendrils to Father’s poisonous chair.
And just then the siren began to blast.
When I arrived in the Pavilion, Father motioned for me to join him in the radio room. I heard an angry voice demanding vehemently to speak with his mother and sister in Jonestown.
“I don’t want to speak with you,” the voice demanded. “I want my sister. I want my mother. Now! I want to hear from their own lips that they are being treated well.”
It was John, the young man whom Jim had taken under his wing and raised since age twelve and who had been in Panama.
Father was livid, but spoke in a kind and calming voice.
“Son, you must be under a great deal of stress. Why don’t you …”
The voice was disrespectful and interrupted Father. “Get my sister on the radio now!”
There was a commotion and the mother and sister in question rushed in from the Pavilion, pale and with fear in their eyes. Father instructed them exactly what to say.
“He wants to know how you are. Tell him that you are very happy here.”
The sister spoke first. “I am very happy here …” The mike was snatched from her hands and put in front of the mother.
The angry voice softened … “Are you there of your own free will? Are you free to travel? Come back and I will care for you …”
Father told the mother what to say.
“I don’t understand why you’re questioning Father. We are very happy here,” she repeated.
Father got on the mike again. “You are welcome to come and visit us. You know, my son, that you are always welcome.” Again he was interrupted.
“I don’t give a damn what you say, I just want to speak with my family,” spewed the voice. “Don’t try and coach ’em. I heard you instructing them!”
The angry exchange continued until Father tired of it and moved the dial off frequency. The radio screamed loudly.
The room fell silent. Father slowly turned around to face me.
“You can never return,” he said. “He could harm you. He knows too much … your trips … the finances … He’s joined forces with the FBI.”
I remained very still and forced a resolute smile. I was to leave in another week. John knew I had gone to Panama and now I could never go home. I struggled desperately to hide my despair. We were 250 miles inside the jungle on a tiny portion of cleared land. All around us, imprisoning and concealing us from the civilized world, were hundreds of miles of impenetrable growth. Armed guards were now posted along the Jonestown road.
How could I have ever entertained the idea of an escape? As my last thread of hope disintegrated, a relief swept over me—Jim’s sons were on the security team. We had guns in the loft. If there was no escape for me, I could shoot myself.
14
Forsaking Mama
One day in early April, my fate took a turn. I reported to the radio room at 7 A.M. to begin the day shift. Father, who had been on night shift with Carolyn and Maria, seemed unusually attentive to me as I entered the room. He smiled, grabbed me from behind, and rubbed my neck, his hands moving forward, then downward toward my breasts. “I look forward to your full report this evening,” he said.
“Of course, Father,” I replied obediently. Why was he so friendly? Now Maria would be mad at me. Sometimes I wondered if he did this on purpose.
He had made me, not Maria, the only liaison between himself and the capital and had become increasingly impressed with my ability to field questions, suggest alternatives, and solve problems. Just this week he had acted on my suggestion to send a new contingent to the Cuban Embassy. So far our shrill appeal for the Cubans to allow us to immigrate into their country had been met with reluctance. We’d explained that our agricultural project here was not fruitful and the American government was trying to hinder our progress by constantly attacking us. Tomorrow our PR staff at the capital would implore the Russian Embassy for asylum. Father had instructed them to offer the Russians several million dollars for our safe passage to Moscow. He was still trying to find safe passage for us into either Cuba or Russia.
By the time the day was at its hottest, I heard Father on the loudspeaker at his house. “Brigade’s about to begin.” I hurried outside and tied my laces; my boots now had two holes in them. It was time to head out to the far field for “bucket brigade.” With the end of the rainy season we were having a drought. The sun glared down upon our desolate, man-made quadrant, the soil of which was no longer protected or moistened by the jungle. The tiny seedlings would wither and die if we did not soak them. Everyone who was capable of standing and walking was required to line up. The process was slow. One hundred of us, some old and wobbly, lined up alongside the jungle barrier. Mama, too, stood with us, not as far down into the field, but a laborer all the same. Our queue started just inside the curtain of foliage where a small river flowed by and it was in this reservoir of muddy water that buckets were dipped and passed from person to person down the long line and into the field. Each of us was careful not to splash the valuable asset from its container. Then, as Father watched, the last individual on the line would cautiously walk down
the row and gently pour the sacred liquid onto one tiny green sprig. Wasting water was an offense!
As I carried my bucket to the next sprouting seedling, Father called out: “Where’s my report?”
I finished pouring the water on my plant and walked back down the brigade to him. “I gave it to Maria earlier when she came by the radio room.”
Jim looked at me quizzically and whispered into my ear, “Maria’s had a few uncomplimentary things to say about your reports. Perhaps you should join us later this evening in the radio room.” I could feel my stomach turn and I swallowed hard to keep from vomiting.
A little later, I reported to night duty with Father, Maria, and Carolyn as I had been instructed, and plunked down next to Maria on the couch. Jim sat in command, manipulating the dials on the ham radio, switching frequencies masterfully. Tonight, he was not asking for more guns to stave off the mercenaries, he was giving directives to the leaders in the San Francisco headquarters on how to answer the flood of investigative reporters’ questions. He discussed who in the city’s political caverns could be used for one more favor. I waited for Father or Maria to confront me, or at least clarify why I was there. By midnight, Father finally implored Maria to do or say something. She shrugged, shook her head as violently as any two-year-old, and continued to look sullen. Finally, Father seemed to take pity on me and excused me. A little baffled, I rose to leave the radio room when Maria mumbled after me, “Have a good trip.”
A good trip? All the way to my cabin? I turned toward the door and rolled my eyes.
“Deb, wait a sec …” Carolyn followed me outside. “There’re a couple of projects we need you to take care of. I want you to arrange for my tax clearance to Barbados. I have to travel there soon to take care of some financial business. We also want you to chaperone the youth group into the capital tomorrow. At 9 A.M.”
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