‘But Dad, it’s just weird.’
My father looked puzzled for a moment.
‘Ah, well. You’re not alone there, Marc. It’s a spiritual concept, not merely a physical one. Even Mama Maria has had to challenge her own mindset. Listen to this, point 72:
‘This uncomfortable feeling is a result of something that isn’t of the Lord, and the devil uses that feeling of awkwardness to try to prevent us from talking about it or doing it, or to try to get us to stop talking about it or doing it. But if we’ll go right ahead and do it, in spite of feeling uncomfortable, the more we do it, the more comfortable we will get with it. The more we talk openly about it, the more quickly it will become just a natural part of our life.
‘So you see, Marc,’ said my father, ‘the more you do it, the more you’ll get used to it. But like I said, I believe this is a spiritual thing that we are each meant to approach in our own way.’
‘But Dad, the same could be said of anything. You could argue I could drink poison and get used to it after a while.’
My father was getting frustrated. ‘Marc, stop being ridiculous.’
‘But Marc does have a point, doesn’t he, Dad?’ I said, trying to help Marc out.
‘If our benchmark for testing new revelations is simply to ask “Will we get used to them in time?”, then the answer is almost certainly “yes”,’ replied my father. ‘In which case Marc is right – this family has proved time and again that almost anything can be endured, even enjoyed.’
I cocked an eyebrow at Marc.
‘Who says we are to test them, Natacha?’
My mother had taken an interest now.
‘Revelations are to test us, we are not to test them. We are to “get the victory” in all things. That’s what King David taught, and that’s what the Lord wants of us.’
‘Indeed.’ My father was beaming. ‘Well said, my darling. You are always the truest of all disciples.’
He leaned towards my mother and kissed her on the cheek.
‘Well, maybe I don’t want to be a disciple.’
My father’s good mood vanished.
‘What did you just say, Marc?’
‘Maybe I want to leave,’ he muttered, unsure of himself now.
‘And do what, Marc? Go where? Become a drug addict living on the streets of some God-forsaken Western country, enslaved by the system and fighting with the Philistines for whatever scraps the Antichrist or his followers throw you. Is that what you want, Marc?’
My mother tried to calm the situation, pleading with Marc.
‘Son, you know God loves you. And God wants you here, among his people as part of The Family. Don’t throw that precious gift of his love away. He’s done everything for us. You have been chosen to be part of his elite army. How can you deny such a high calling?’
‘Yeah …’ The fight had all but left Marc now. ‘I guess …’
‘Good,’ my father said firmly, turning to all of us. ‘We’ll have no more of this nonsense now.’
Later that night Marc came into the room I shared with Vincent and Aimée. He sat on the end of my bed and told me he couldn’t see a way forward any more. The ‘Loving Jesus’ guidance was only part of the reason he was determined to leave. He just couldn’t see eye to eye with my parents any more.
‘But Marc, where will you go? How will you manage?’
He looked crestfallen at the question. ‘I’ll live on faith, I guess. Isn’t that what we’ve always done?’ He let out a bitter, wry little laugh.
Marc didn’t know anything about how the system operated; none of us did. In France we’d learned that system people kept their money in banks but we didn’t know what an account was or how to open one. We didn’t know what a CV was or how people applied for jobs. We didn’t know about electricity bills, how to buy a train ticket, how to book an appointment with a doctor – none of the things children who had grown up in normal households knew. We weren’t normal. That much we definitely knew to be true by now.
‘I do know one thing though, Natacha. When I make enough money I’ll come back and get you. I want you out of The Family too. The men in this group aren’t good enough for you.’
I got out of bed and hugged him. ‘I know you will. You’ll be OK, Marc. You’ll do it.’
Chapter 15
Changing Tides
Matt took a long, exaggerated drag on the cigarette, then handed it to Caleb, who nodded appreciatively. ‘Nice, man. Gauloise. The philosopher’s smoke.’
Caleb puffed in what he imagined was a sophisticated way and passed it to his sister Sienna. She gave it a tentative little suck before hurriedly handing it to me. I was determined to look like I knew what I was doing in front of Caleb. I copied what he’d done, taking a long puff and inhaling it deep into my lungs.
I spluttered so hard I was almost sick. It was disgusting. Matt rolled his eyes at me. Caleb laughed. ‘You nutter. Not so hard the first time. Here, let me show you.’ He took the cigarette between his fingers and gently placed it back in my mouth. ‘OK, gently. Just a little bit, not too much … that’s it.’
I really didn’t want another go but Caleb’s face was inches from mine. He smelt so good.
I took a little puff and only spluttered a little bit this time. ‘Good girl,’ he said proudly.
I beamed.
Skulking around, hiding from our parents and doing forbidden things like smoking and drinking had become pretty normal for us. Two months earlier, completely out of the blue, Caleb and Sienna’s parents had written to mine to say they were also inspired to move to Réunion. I had been ecstatic at the prospect of seeing him again. Thankfully he felt the same way. Almost from day one we started seeing each other. Matt and Marc were brilliant, covering for me so I could meet him. Matt started to date Sienna. They made a great couple. She was the perfect foil to his wit. She was a little bit quieter than him but she was also extremely funny, and they made each other laugh constantly. Together with Marc and Eman, another teenage boy who lived with Caleb and Sienna’s parents, the four of us had now become a little gang of six naughty rebels. Life had suddenly become much more fun.
Sienna had a slumber party at her house. All of us were there. As everyone else slept Caleb reached over and kissed me.
‘Let’s do it. Here. I want to do it so badly with you. Don’t you?’
Actually I didn’t. I was terrified. But I didn’t know how to say no.
Caleb and I were both virgins, and, despite having watched people have sex all through our childhoods, when it came to doing it ourselves we were both pretty useless. It wasn’t helped by the fear of one of my brothers waking up while we were in the middle of it. When it was over I wondered what all the fuss was about and was certainly in no hurry to try it again.
Unfortunately my mom suspected something had gone on and tricked me into telling her the truth by pretending to already know. She immediately told my dad, whose liberal sexual attitudes failed him when it came to the thought of his precious little girl doing it. He hit the roof and banned me from seeing Caleb without a brother as chaperone. Secretly it was a relief because it meant I couldn’t be pressured into more sex.
Matt was our gang leader. He was fearless. One of his favourite tricks was stealing money from my father’s witnessing funds to buy local bootleg beer or cigarettes. He had to be careful not to take so much as to get detected, so sometimes the stolen booty only got us one bottle of beer to share between six. But for us it wasn’t about getting drunk, it was about the illicit pleasure of breaking the rules. It could have been stolen jam for all we cared. The point was that it was illicit, taken from right under my father’s unsuspecting nose.
We hung on Matt’s every word. He and Caleb, his deputy, were wisecracking, cool guys. Vincent tried to follow us everywhere but Matt usually brushed him off, telling him he was still too young and more likely to get us caught.
My parents suspected Matt was the instigator of a lot of trouble but didn’t really want to believe thei
r son was becoming such a ‘backslider’. As much as possible they tried to stick their heads in the sand. Caleb and Sienna’s parents knew what was going on and my father was upset at a rift that developed with the couple, who had until then been their good friends. He made his displeasure known, constantly sniping at Matt. One evening, over dinner, he accused Matt of talking with his mouth full. It was a tiny thing, but it escalated:
‘I was not talking, Dad. I was chewing. You know, that thing you do to food. Like this.’ Matt made exaggerated chewing movements, followed by a little sneer.
Dad was in no mood for it. ‘Don’t talk back to me, Matthew. I am trying to teach you good manners. Goodness knows we have tried all these years, and where has it got us?’
Matt shot a look. ‘And what is that supposed to mean?’
‘Do you really need me to explain? Shut up and eat your dinner.’ Dad slammed his knife into his plate, trying to control his anger.
‘Shut up? Oh yeah, that’s your answer to everything, isn’t it? Tell us to shut up. And teaching us manners? Is that what you think you did?’
The rest of us, including Mom, stared nervously at our plates. We were getting used to these angry exchanges between them. Our policy was generally to stay quiet and not inflame either of them further.
My father carefully put down his knife and fork and raised his elbows onto the table, staring Matt squarely in the face. ‘Grow up. You are about to become a father yourself. Show some maturity for once in your life.’
Matt couldn’t resist the last word: ‘Oh yeah, Dad, I am going to be a way better father than you.’
At that my dad was up and out of his chair and halfway across the table, his eyes blazing.
‘Marcel, calm down.’ My mother was on her feet, one hand on her husband’s arm. ‘Matt, go to your room and stay there, please. You are a rude young man and this is not the example I expect you to set to the younger children. Apologise to your father immediately.’
‘Sorry.’ Matt slouched out of the room, the muscle in his cheek twitching.
My father sat back down and we finished our meal in uncomfortable silence.
The halcyon days of our little teen gang were about to come to an end. Sienna had fallen pregnant and she and Matt moved into their own house. They horrified both sets of parents with the shocking news that their newborn baby would not be brought up with our faith because both of them were quitting The Family.
Caleb and Sienna’s parents had been offered the chance to ‘pioneer’ Madagascar in the way my parents had done on Réunion, that is, to set up a brand new commune and take The Family’s message to a new place where it didn’t already have a presence. That was seen as a very holy thing to do and something that earned them a lot of praise from the leadership.
Caleb, who had just turned 17, bravely told them he wasn’t going either, because he was following his sister in quitting the cult. He took the decision to move back to France where he said he would find a job and send for me when he could. Kindly Uncle Samuel agreed he could stay with him for a few weeks until he got himself sorted.
When Caleb came to tell me his news I felt like I had been punched in the chest, a sensation made worse by the fact he didn’t seem half as upset as I was. ‘At least it gets me off this boring island,’ was his reaction.
How could he say that? I didn’t know how I was going to live without him.
The night before he left we sneaked away into our favourite little hiding place in some sugar-cane fields. As I lay with my head on his chest he stroked my hair and promised me he would write to me every day.
After he left I was so depressed I could barely move. I wasn’t allowed the luxury of moping. Life was still a relentless routine of helping my mother with the younger children and keeping the house clean. I had no one to have fun with any more. Impending parenthood had made Matt and Sienna all grown-up and no fun any longer. Vincent had taken to wandering off on his own as often as he could, and Marc was in a constant bad mood.
I think I was so absorbed with my own misery that it had stopped occurring to me how unhappy Marc might be too. When he told me we needed to go for a walk outside so he could tell me his news I was completely unprepared.
‘I’m going. Next week. I’m leaving The Family.’
It shouldn’t have been such a shock. He and I had discussed it for months, even more so since Matt had renounced the cult. I knew he hated his life and had no belief left in the way we’d been raised. But I also knew that we didn’t know any other way of life. Deep down I don’t think I really thought he’d have the courage to do it. He told me he had been in contact with two other second-generation members who had left – friends he’d met at the teen camp in Belgium. Having been ridiculed as ‘backsliders’ by Mama Maria and cut off by their families, ex-members began looking to each other for support. Informal flat-sharing clusters sprang up in Paris and London. Marc had been invited by his friends to join one in London.
My parents were deeply disappointed. They gave him the usual warnings about how he faced a lifetime of sin – drugs, drink and all the temptations the devil might throw at him.
‘You are turning your back on God and no good can come from this,’ my father told him angrily. ‘If you think you are grown-up enough to make this worldly decision then you go ahead, but don’t think for a second you can expect me and your mother to help you out when it all goes wrong. And mark my words it will go wrong. There is nothing to be gained from a life on the outside. Nothing.’
The day Marc flew to London was the worst of my life. Still reeling from Caleb’s departure, I was now losing my confidant, the brother I trusted the most.
Over the next few weeks Caleb’s letters started to get more and more intermittent, until they stopped arriving altogether.
I asked Sienna to find out why. He’d moved on but not even bothered to tell me. He was living with Jeanette, my old friend from camp.
On my sixteenth birthday I woke up feeling like an old lady. Instead of looking to a future full of promise and adventure, I felt like life had already passed me by. I stopped eating, making excuses as I picked at my food. I imagined myself as a pitiful heroine wasting away from a broken heart.
I very nearly got my wish. I got peritonitis and was rushed into the local hospital for emergency treatment. I spent a week there staring miserably at the ceiling. To make it worse I also developed septicaemia, a serious blood infection, and had to have intravenous antibiotics to stop it poisoning the rest of my organs. I lay there staring at the florescent light above my bed, sinking deeper and deeper into depression.
My parents weren’t quite sure what to do with me, but they figured they had better try something to cheer me up or risk another child leaving the faith. They’d recently got back in touch with Leah. She’d found out where they were and had written to say she was happily married and living in Mauritius with her husband, Edward, who was from there. She had three children with him, and Thérèse, now 15, was living with them. She and Edward were both still devout members of The Family.
I was thrilled to hear any news of Thérèse, and to cheer me up my father asked Leah if I could go to visit them. I felt very loved and special that he’d arranged this. I knew the money for the ferry crossing was very hard to come by. It was the first time I’d travelled by boat and I was violently sick on the way there. High waves caused the boat to lurch from side to side and there was nowhere to sit as every wooden bench was crammed with people nursing brightly wrapped parcels of luggage, crates of food, even live goats. I still wasn’t well after my stint in hospital and the journey totally took it out of me. But as we docked I was in high spirits, craning my neck for a glimpse of my second mother and my little sis. As I scanned the faces lining the harbour it occurred to me for the first time that I might not recognise them.
As I stepped off the gangplank a bulky, swarthy-looking man approached me. He stuck out his hand. ‘Natacha?’
‘Yes. That’s me.’
‘I’m Un
cle Edward. Come on.’
With that he turned on his heel, gesturing for me to follow. He didn’t offer to help me with my bags; he didn’t say, ‘Pleased to meet you.’ He didn’t even crack a smile.
The rest of the trip was a disaster, played out in a similar way. Leah, although delighted to see me, was under Edward’s control. I got the distinct impression she was regretting ever asking me to come.
But the saddest thing of all was Thérèse. Physically she still reminded me of the little girl waving goodbye from the minibus window. She had the same dark ringlets and intense blue eyes. But she was really quiet and reserved, almost afraid of her own shadow.
I had hoped for some teenage bonding, but it wasn’t to be. When I told her my brothers and I smoked and drank alcohol I thought she might be impressed, but she was horrified. I tried to talk to her about my own growing doubts about The Family but she shushed me. Instead of flying by, my week with them dragged unbearably. I arrived home with a groundswell of anger in my belly towards The Family and her father. She was his but he’d let her be taken away from him. What had poor little Thérèse done to deserve that?
Marc rang often. When he called, my parents made a little bit of small talk but they rarely asked for the details of his life. They didn’t want to hear it. My mother usually reminded him to say his prayers or told him to ‘get the victory’.
When she passed the handset over to me he confided he was struggling to cope with life. The shared flat was squalid and overcrowded and his friends partied a lot, smoking dope and spending most of their evenings getting hammered. He was incredibly lonely. He wanted to find a girlfriend but he said system women found him too intense. If he tried to tell a girl about his past they ran a mile.
‘It’s not like I thought it would be, Natacha. It’s so much harder.’
I had nothing to say that would make it better. He was living a life and facing pressures I couldn’t begin to understand. Usually I just tried to offer platitudes, telling him I was proud of him and that he’d work it out.
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