Not Without My Sister

by Kristina Jones, Celeste Jones, Juliana Buhring

  Our house was a typical modern Greek villa, painted white, and with a red tiled roof. The surrounding garden contained fruit trees, some scratchy lawn grass, yellow mimosa, and olive trees. We were within walking distance of a large campsite by the sea called Coco Camp. Half was for regular holidaymakers; the other half was block booked for us, the Family. Families began arriving in their caravans and trailers until about two hundred new people had joined us. All of them were either musicians or technicians who had been specially chosen to work on Dad's show.

  During the day I would run free, playing with the children within the camp's grounds and along the beach. There were big colored pebbles to collect, and dead starfish, shells, and sea urchins. There was so much to see and do I never stopped playing from dawn to dusk. My hair would go unbrushed for days. I remember an American woman called Windy, a singer/songwriter for the show, sitting me down with a comb and laboriously untangling my thick mop of curls.

  Sometimes in the evening I would lie on my bed for hours, bored while Dad recorded late into the night in the studio with Faithy Berg and Jeremy Spencer, whose fame had followed him here. Faithy had decided to use him as a selling point to pitch the show to broadcasters.

  To solve the problem of the little wild mustang I was becoming, Faithy sent a succession of nannies to take care of me. First it was a married woman named Rosa. Then Crystal, a hot-tempered American woman, replaced her. Crystal was a petite woman with pursed lips and a mane of shoulder-length light-brown hair. She didn't have a motherly bone in her body and cussed like a trooper, not the sort of language that good Christians should use, and was always getting into trouble for drinking too much. Crystal often referred to me as the "girl with the curl in the middle of her forehead. When she was good, she was very good, but when she was bad, she was horrid." I admit I did have a stubborn streak, especially with her. I hated her because I knew she had set her sights on snatching up Dad for a husband and I was determined to do all I could to scotch any romance between them. I wasn't successful.

  Dad did have a fling with her, but their love affair was to be short-lived.

  The only one I would listen to was Dad. I loved him more than anybody in the world and did my best to please him. I took no notice of anyone else, expecting my mother to come back at any time, even though we had said goodbye and she had been gone for what seemed aeons of time.

  But why, why, couldn't I remember her? Why couldn't I even remember that dreadful final moment of our parting in Bombay?

  I pined so much that finally Dad arranged for me to speak with Mum on the phone, long distance to London.

  I felt weak with shock and took the phone, hardly able to believe that I was hearing her voice again. "When are you coming, Mummy?" I asked anxiously, the years of yearning filling my voice.

  "I love you, Celeste. I'll try to come soon." I heard a voice I didn't recognize say on the other end of the line. "Your sister Kristina and brother David love you and want to see you too."

  She had said that she was going to come back to live with us again! I was so excited.

  "It's all worked out," Dad told me after the phone call. "The tickets are booked and everything. It won't be long now, darling."

  I looked over at Crystal, who was sitting nearby, and pronounced triumphantly, "You don't need to be here anymore. My mummy's coming back."

  Crystal glowered. A few weeks later the leaders-who had the final say in everything, even love—broke up their relationship, thinking she was not good enough for my father, their new media star. I certainly didn't think so. All I knew was that my mum would be there soon and I would be reunited with her and my sister and brother. I longed to have her there, cuddling me, brushing my hair, and being my mum again. But time passed and I heard nothing. I waited in a frenzy of impatience. Every day I talked-and thought-about my mother. When, when, when?

  One day, when I asked Dad for the umpteenth time, "When's Mummy coming back?" he could not put off telling me any longer what he knew would shatter my world. "She's changed her mind. She decided to stay with Joshua."

  I stared at him, shocked, feeling my heart jump and beat in panic like a fluttering bird. I did not understand. Why had she changed her mind? Who was this man Joshua, who had taken her away from us? It did not make sense to me and I could not accept that it was final. My memories of her had faded by this time, and I did not even remember what she looked like anymore—but she was my mother and it was the idea that I had clung to for half my life. I remained fiercely determined that no matter what, no one would take her place.

  Chapter 2

  We had a little beat-up car that barely puttered along. The back seats had been taken out by the previous owners (which is why we got it cheap) so you had to sit on the floor. I was in the back with my playmate, Nicki, and we were giggling as we experimented with what we imagined sex to be, like we'd seen the adults do it, undies down, on top of each other and humping away. We were both only five years old. Obviously, things didn't work properly and it was just a game.

  "You're tickling!"

  "No I'm not—"

  "Yes you are. Ouch. My leg's stuck."

  I heard muffled laughter, and glancing up, saw Nicki's mum, Patience, peering in through the car window at us, her face alight with amusement. Like a shot, I sat up and shoved Nicki away.

  He saw his mum and went bright red.

  "It's okay, you guys can carry on," she said.

  But I felt very embarrassed and silly. What a moment ago had seemed like fun no longer did. One thing I didn't feel was guilt. Of all the sins we had to avoid, sex wasn't one of them. Mo said God intended everyone, even newborn babes, to enjoy the full sexual experience.

  If anyone turned on the radio and heard one of my dad's Music with Meaning shows the message would seem idyllic: love was the answer to all of the world's problems—sharing love, living in love, and making love. Mo instructed Dad not to use the word "Jesus" on the show. This strategy was an important one, because many listeners had no idea what they were tuning in to, or that the show had any religious affiliation, let alone a notorious one. But some of the songs on the show were hardly subtle. Jeremy Spencer sang a song entitled "Too Young for Love," based on the Mo Letter "Child Brides," where Mo set out his belief that children as young as eleven and twelve were ready for marriage, sex, and children.

  Part of Mo's plan was to produce a second generation of children, like me, who were born into the Family of Love and who had never known the outside Systemite world. They would be untarnished by the sins of a former life. To show what faith he was putting into this earthly paradise he called "Loveville," Berg sent members of his own family to live with

  us .

  There was Faithy of course, his youngest and most loyal daughter, who was such a zealot her blue eyes shone fiercely. Mo also sent his granddaughter, nine-year-old Mene, who became a star of the show. When I first saw her I thought she looked like an angel, with her bright blue eyes, milky white skin, and blonde, wispy hair. She had a soft, sweet voice and a dreamy look in her eyes. She behaved like the perfect Family child, always obedient and smiling, reading and quoting the Word.

  We rarely spent time together anywhere except in the recording studio or at practice rehearsals. I never played outside with Mene in a normal childish way—I don't think she was ever allowed to play.

  Everyone had something to contribute to the Music with Meaning radio and video shows. It was fun and, like any child, I loved to show off my talents. There were musicians, artists, technicians, seamstresses, and secretaries. Some of the more famous characters were Peter Pioneer and Rachel, a married couple and singing duo from Denmark, and Joan and Windy, a singer/songwriter team who were openly bisexual. Zack Lightman, from Norway, was the lighting man and cameraman, and his wife Lydia designed the costumes and backdrops. Sue, a softly spoken American with brown eyes and a charming smile, was the "club secretary." Jeremy Spencer's wife Fiona was the "Queen Mother" of the camp, and the chef was a fiery Italian named An
tonio. They lived as a threesome and Fiona had seven children by these two men.

  In the center of the camp a large canvas army tent was used as a gathering place for meetings and a dining hall in the winter months, when nights were cold. Two big gas fires heated the arena and we used kerosene lamps for light. To feed so many people, there was a whole team of people whose job was to "provision" free food from the markets and local companies.

  When the weather was warm, we ate on rows of benches and tables under the trees. Our food was fresh and, on the whole, delicious. Our breakfast consisted of semolina, sweetened with brown sugar, honey or molasses. Antonio tended to cook Italian food, the kind that could be quickly prepared for some two hundred hungry people. Big bowls of pasta with rich tomato sauce, or stews with beef chucks, potatoes, and carrots.

  Children were regimented and expected to behave. Even the very youngest had to sit still on the hard wooden benches lined up in the big tent and listen during the long meetings we had in the evenings. These sessions were incredibly boring and I would end up retreating into my thoughts and a make-believe world as a way of escape. I also found it incredibly difficult to keep my eyes closed during the long prayers, and I would cover my eyes with my hands and peek through my fingers so no one would catch me.

  Once Faithy had established the running of the camp, she turned over the leadership of Loveville to a married couple, Paul Peloquin—a French Canadian from Quebec—and his wife Marianne, and departed on her next mission, to set up a Spanish version of the show, Musica Con Vida, in Puerto Rico.

  Paul and Marianne took their task seriously—too seriously. They were a childless couple and had been desperately praying for a son for many years. Paul had jet-black hair and brown eyes and spoke English with a heavy French accent. He was a real charmer, but also had a fierce temper that could flare up unexpectedly. Marianne was French—a well-built woman, big boned, nearly six feet tall with deep-set eyes and a pronounced nose. Part of their responsibility was to draw up the daily schedule and assign everyone their jobs for the following day.

  Reveille was at 7.30 a.m., and after breakfast, I'd go to a nearby house which we named the Blue House because it was a pretty shade of faded blue—the same color as many of the fishermen's boats. This was our communal school, where we had Word Time and Scholastics, taught by our regular teachers, Johnny Appleseed, Fiona—Jeremy Spencer's wife—and Patience, Nicki's mother. We were shown flannelgraphs and read True Komix—illustrated Mo Letters for kids. An endless river of these Letters and books from Mo and Maria would come in the post, usually once every two weeks. Every Home had to open a mail box and the leader in each Home was the only one who knew that address and had the key. It was run like a military espionage service, with secrecy the code word.

  On sunny days Word Time would take place under the shady umbrella pines in the campsite. Sunday-school teachers in the outside world would have swooned if they'd opened up a True Komix. Many of them showed scenes of explicit sex, nudity, or gruesome demons and bizarre dreams that Mo believed /Always had some meaning—they were God's messages. "Mo is God's prophet for today, His mouthpiece to give us His new Word," our teachers would tell us. "System Christians don't have the Spirit; they are 'old bottles' who can't receive the new wine."

  God, Jesus, the angels, and the Devil were real and part of our everyday lives. Jesus would reward us when we were good, or the Devil would punish us when were bad. Our indoctrination was constant, and questioning anything opened our minds up to the Devil's doubts. A picture from one of the True Komix sticks in my mind. There's a little table with a tea set, and the Devil is depicted as a little elf with horns and a pitchfork. A little girl is sitting in the chair next to him and four little "doubtlets," and the Devil is pouring her a cup of tea. The next scene shows her trapped in quicksand, sinking back into the System, because the Devil and his doubtlets had got to her. "It's dangerous to have a tea party with the Devil and his doubts," the comic said.

  Some of the True Komix stories we read were based on the Royal Familys children, Davidito, Davida, and Techi. We already knew them from the "Davidito Letters" as examples of how to raise "revolutionary" children in God's way Mo's secretary and second "wife," Maria, had two children, Davidito and Techi. Davidito was born in 1975 from a Flirty Fishing encounter with a hotel waiter in Tenerife. He was only three days older than me, and I was very proud of that fact. Maria's lover and Mo's right-hand man, Timothy, was Techi's father. Mo wrote that Timothy was "just hired for his seed" and that Techi was his. He claimed that he'd received Techi's unusual name in a vision, when a spirit of a little girl had come to him when he was sick (and just before she was born, in 1979). He decided that Techi was a reincarnation and tried to fit this Buddhist doctrine in alongside Christian doctrines.

  Davida was the daughter of Sarah Kelley, Davidito's full-time nanny. She called herself Sarah Davidito. All three children were part of the Royal Family and lived in seclusion in Mo's Home. The Royal Family children were to have a lot of influence in my life. They were our idols we looked up to, and we followed their lives in the Mo letters we read with great interest and curiosity.

  After siesta, we would be allowed out to play. My regular playmates were two sisters, Renee and Daniella. I liked their mother, Endureth, and took to her as my second, mother. I still did not accept Serena as my stepmother and often ignored her. I suppose my childish mind figured that if I blanked her out, she didn't exist. Serena also had her hands full caring for her six-month-old daughter, Mariana, and was now heavily pregnant by my father. To ease the situation, I ended up staying indefinitely with Endureth and her husband Silas, My sister Kristina would have been the same age as Daniella, and I would always talk about her as if I knew her, only she was in "India with my mother and baby David." Being with my friends in their family atmosphere helped me to pretend that I had lots of sisters. During the day we would play together, and at night we slept in a large double bed in the back of the caravan.

  My other friend was Armi. We could not have looked more different. She had dark, straight black hair and brown eyes just like her mother, who was half Native American. She was one of the first children to be born into the Children of God, in February 1972. Her father, Jeremiah Russell, was one of the first disciples to join Mo's team in Huntington Beach when there were only fifteen members. He was a musician and wrote songs that were played on the Music with Meaning show. Armi inherited her father's musical talents and was a star performer and I wanted to be just like her, sing like her, and hang around with her and her group of friends. We laughed at the same jokes, told each other our secrets, and she would help me and teach me things, like how to draw a body in proportion, instead ofjust a triangle for a neck and a circle for a hand. And she was also the one who helped me lose my clipped English accent and speak 'American" like most of the other children.

  Armi and Mene, Mo's granddaughter, bonded together as sisters of misfortune. Their parents had been asked by Mo to send their daughters to Loveville with the assurance that they would be returned in six months. This never happened. Instead, Paul Peloquin and Marianne became their guardians.

  No one dared to go against Mo's requests, which were obeyed as orders. After all, he was the prophet. We were conditioned to believe that carrying out Mo's directives was following God's will. It's clear looking back on it now that we were simply his playthings, his followers, used to fulfil his ambitions, lusts and fantasies. When Mo requested the women to dance naked for him on video, Paul got us all together, even the three-year-old girls, for a special meeting to read us the Mo Letters "Glorify God in the Dance" and "Nudes Can Be Beautiful."

  "Thank the Lord! Isn't it a special privilege to be able to dance for the King?"

  Excited, the adult women responded with many "Praise the Lords" and 'Amens" to Paul's question.

  Paul continued, "He's given us detailed tips in these letters of how to do it. Praise the Lord."

  I watched as the women picked their music and see-through vei
ls and then performed their strip dances. When it was the girls' turn, Paul said, "Now this is for Davidito—so smile for him."

  Armi, Mene, Renee, and Daniella did their dances for the little prince—and then it was my turn. Paul chose two songs for me and tied a white veil around my neck that I was supposed to take off during the dance. He gave me directions from behind the camera.

  "Wiggle!" He pantomimed it. "Wiggle nicely and rub your bottom, honey."

  I simply copied the motions I had seen the adult women perform earlier.

  "Good, very good! Now blow kisses to Davidito so he'll know you really love him."

  I tried hard to smile and at the same time listen to what he was telling me to do behind the camera. This video still exists and the adult I have grown to be looks back in time at that sweetly smiling six-year-old child who was me. I am gazing into the camera, seducing it; and what is stunning is the knowing-innocent look in my eyes. What makes it worse in retrospect is at the time Davidito was only six years old—so this request was Mo's sick idea that his namesake should be groomed like him, while the dirty old man enjoyed these dances for his own pleasure.

  From then on, nude pictures were taken of us girls on a regular basis and sent to Mo. He told us that he would post them around his room for his daily inspiration—a euphemism for masturbation. It is quite obvious to me now that Mo got his jollies off on voyeurism. However, we didn't realize that he was getting closer to the stage where he would select his favourite girls to be brought to him for his personal gratification. Their parents believed naively that they were in "good hands," even though they were unaware of their children's whereabouts and unable to communicate with them. But all that was in the future and, happily for me, I didn't yet know where some of my friends were destined to go.