Greg likened India’s behavior to that of a panicked addict who wasn’t getting her fix—something he’d seen plenty of times. He helped me stay strong and continue not to relent.
“No, absolutely not!” he advised. “Don’t give her anything. You are dealing with someone who has the mentality of a heroin addict right now. You have to consider yourself her trustee. You want to give her those paintings when she gets married and buys a house. The reason she has no money isn’t because of you, it’s because Keith went through all her money. One day she’ll understand.”
I tried to put myself in India’s shoes, assuming I’d wake up one day and get out of that cult. My future self would be thankful that my mother didn’t let go of the last remnants and small treasures of my true life. And so I didn’t.
But the tantrum texts kept coming, until I had an idea:
India, this is not a text convo. I will pay for you to come home and have a face-to-face. Much faster resolution. Not to drag u through the dirt as u told your dad but bc I love u and care about ur safety above all else.
Shockingly, she agreed. I quickly bought her a plane ticket for the following week and spent the next few days preparing what I was going to say to her. I wanted to reach her, not alienate her. I wanted to love her, not enable her.
I was going to see India!
Here was my second chance after that first failed intervention to speak to her face-to-face and try to help her connect the dots that Bonnie, Yasmine, Lisa, Ava, Mark, and hundreds of others had seen and connected.
At the same time, salvaging our relationship was more important than anything else. I wanted to focus on the love between us, not on who was right and who was wrong.
Except for the brief faraway wave we’d had in November, it had been almost nine months since I’d talked to her on the phone or seen her in person—nine months since I’d hugged my daughter.
India didn’t want to meet at home, so we set up a three o’clock tea on Tuesday, February 13, at our favorite Greek restaurant in Malibu. Demeter and Persephone were about to break bread.
I couldn’t sleep the night before. I woke up at one thirty and stared at the ceiling for hours. She’d already landed and would be at Bill’s by now, I calculated. I felt agitated and tossed and turned and couldn’t figure out why, until I did. I was dreading the confrontation of having to say no to her over and over again—no to liquidating her assets, no to stopping the docuseries, no to not writing this book.
And then I realized: this was the first time since the second I’d learned I was pregnant with India that I was not looking forward to seeing her.
How incredibly sad, I thought.
—
I GOT TO the restaurant a minute before India, and as I took a seat at a table, in she walked.
Never mind my earlier hesitation about seeing her; as soon as I set eyes on her, my heart swelled with love. She looked beautiful and elegant in black slacks and a thin sweater. I grabbed her and hugged her tight and kissed her on her face repeatedly, and petted her hair.
“Mom!” she giggled. I couldn’t help it. “You smell so good, Mom!”
I gave her a humongous bag full of girly beauty gifts: sweet-smelling soaps, lotions, powders, creams, and colorful bubble bath liquids. The Spartan cult lifestyle didn’t condone all the feminine things I knew India loved, so I wanted to encourage a sensory feast. In her world, in which women were branded and used, I wanted her to reconnect with her body in a loving way and remember her beauty.
“How did you know I was a lizard?” India laughed, in appreciation.
“You’re a California girl in the middle of winter in Albany!” I said.
As I ordered two pots of mint tea and an order of baba ghanoush, India admitted that she too had been nervous about our meeting.
“My heart was pounding, I kept pacing around and rehearsing what I was going to say. I felt like I was going on a first date,” she said with a laugh. “And then I let it all go. My goal is reconciliation, Mom.”
I’d done the exact same thing and felt the exact same way that morning—we were so much alike.
At first, we had what might be considered a normal mother-daughter conversation. She talked about looking for a job at vegan restaurants in Manhattan, and that gave me a shiver of hope—until she said she’d also applied to restaurants in Albany, and showed me her resume. Under “Work Experience,” she’d written: “ESP, 2011 to present.”
We were even able to laugh a bit about our troubled year.
“I told my sisters that their cult sister was coming to see them,” India said with a smirk. “But I think it was too soon to make a joke like that. They freaked out.”
I smiled and nodded, thinking, You don’t even realize what a cult is and that you’re in one.
But I let that go, as I would let a few things go during our talk that day. Because as I watched and listened to her, and we laughed and teared up at times, something more important was happening.
I was amazed and grateful to see that no matter what had gone on in the last nine months, the love between us was as authentic and undeniable as ever. We could both feel it radiating across the table like an invisible force that overpowered any cult script or agenda she’d been instructed to employ on this trip.
And she did come with a memorized script, and a new mission: Shut your mother up.
After about thirty minutes, India announced she wanted to talk about what I was doing that upset her: the book and docuseries and the interviews I was giving to the press.
“This has been the hardest six months of my life,” she said. “I’ve been humiliated in public. I have lost friends. People have said terrible things to me, like, ‘You’re torturing girls, you’re a disgusting person!’ ”
“I’m so sorry, darling, that I’ve contributed in any way to your pain,” I said. And I was, of course. It tore me apart to hear her tell me in person how much hurt I was directly or indirectly causing her. But I still believed this pain was the necessary and difficult ring of fire that would deliver us from the greater pain, which was a fate worse than death: India giving up the rest of her life to this depraved cult.
I had my own practiced script ready, too. Anytime my daughter named a grievance, I was empathetic and apologized for any pain I may have caused.
“If I were in your position,” I continued, “and I was part of a group, and people were saying bad things about me and the group, I would feel the same way.”
“But Mom, I don’t think it is fair that my private life is so public. I have the right to choose how I want to live.”
“Darling, when you began recruiting people, it was no longer private. Do you understand why I went to the media?”
“Because you were desperate?”
“Exactly.”
“I wish I could reassure you that I’m fine.”
One thing was for sure, she was eating again—which I was so relieved to see. As we talked, India was inhaling the delicious toasted chunks of bread dipped in baba ghanoush with zest. I remembered Lisa telling me that one of the most difficult challenges India had in Albany was sticking to the slave diet and that she’d break it by eating cheesecake.
“India, it would help me to be more reassured if you’d be open to seeing a therapist. If there is nothing wrong with you, then you have nothing to lose. I really want to understand where you are coming from, but I need help. I’m really struggling.”
“There are only two people I will not talk to: Rick Alan Ross and Frank.”
Which didn’t surprise me, since they were both archenemies of Keith’s. But wait—was she saying she would see a different therapist?
Somehow we got onto the topic of branding, and she actually used the word DOS when describing the sorority group, which surprised me. It was all but admitting the master-slave setup. From this moment on in the conversation, I felt like I was falling into a black hole.
“You said the branding was a good experience for you, but how would you fee
l if some people found it terrifying?” I asked. “Would that concern you?”
I read her a quote from a clinical social worker named Dan Shaw—who’d treated dozens of cult victims in his practice—about Keith and Nxivm:
I’ve been doing this work for many years. I am nevertheless aghast at the level of contempt for women and cruelty toward women that is at the rotten core of this group. Raniere succeeds in fulfilling his sadistic need to enslave others through a kind of battering, his twisted rationales convincing followers, and not just the women, that self-torture and torture of others builds character.
In fact, what he does is utterly self-serving, exploiting others entirely to feed the delusion of his own omnipotence. Those who have been brainwashed with Raniere’s hateful ideas about women will need time to free themselves from their conditioning, to be able to respect and trust themselves again.
India looked shocked and confused.
“That hasn’t been my experience at all,” she said in a loving tone. “Maybe it’s just not for everyone. I’ve chosen an alternative lifestyle.”
The entire time we spoke, we spoke with love, tenderness, and appreciation for each other; it didn’t matter what words we were saying. Every word was couched in love—we both smiled the entire time.
“It’s weird, darling. Creepy weird.”
“I’ve only had a positive experience.”
“I understand that, and I don’t want to take that away from you. I’m just afraid that you’ve been taught to normalize things that just aren’t okay. You’ve been branded with the symbol of Keith and Allison’s initials!”
“It doesn’t matter what I’m branded with,” she replied. “That’s irrelevant to me.”
I was aghast.
“I am not anyone’s property,” she insisted. “And it’s not his initials, like they are trying to sensationalize in the press. The branding was me pushing past my fears, my limitations. Besides, even tattoo parlors offer branding.”
The branding talk was pointless, and we agreed to disagree—which became the refrain of the afternoon.
“Mom, you just think I’m stupid, don’t you?”
“No, India, I don’t. I think you are smart, and I believe that down the line you are going to figure it out. When people start getting arrested, please promise me that you will call me.”
“Yes, I will.”
My daughter was far from stupid. In fact, she had a prepared answer for everything.
“Why did Keith flee to Mexico?” I asked.
“Because people don’t like him.”
“People don’t leave the country just because people don’t ‘like’ them!” I asked her about Mark and Bonnie.
“It’s okay if you want to leave,” she said, “but it’s not okay to destroy people’s lives.”
“What if Mark and Bonnie were unhappy with what the company was doing? What if that was not what they signed up for? It no longer aligned with their values. Would you be willing to think about that as a possibility?
“And what about Sarah and Nippy, you were so close to them. Would you talk to them?”
“No, I don’t want to talk to anyone who has publicly tried to destroy the group. I feel defensive about anyone saying that they are a victim.”
I refrained from saying what I was thinking: Keith cornered the market on victimhood. But I didn’t want to be argumentative and push too hard.
“The point is, people are fleeing the group. Doesn’t that bother you?”
“They’re afraid because of the rumors that were spread.”
“Rumors? You don’t think that people had evidence? Do you know about the investigation?”
“Yes. No one here’s been too worried about that . . .”
“Well, it’s nothing compared with what’s coming.”
I was trying to wake her up, but all I was getting were the same blank stares I’d seen months before. My words were not penetrating; she didn’t understand what I was saying.
“Are you aware that this is a criminal enterprise?” I asked her.
“What are the crimes?”
“Well, they could include racketeering, tax evasion, sex trafficking, human trafficking, money laundering, identity theft.” I was speculating, sure, but I wanted to scare her. “That doesn’t worry you?”
“Lots of people do those things.”
No, India, they don’t! Criminals do these things!
Her tone and delivery sounded so normal, so smooth and rational on the surface, but what she was saying was so warped and off, it rocked my internal balance and made me dizzy.
Then India took it a step further to say that I was the criminal, not Keith or anyone in the cult. That’s why I got that legal letter from Mexico.
“You broke the law,” she said.
“What law do you think I broke?” I asked. “What crime did I commit?”
“You can’t just start calling people like you did and try to scare them off.”
I remained silent. I couldn’t believe the garbage they fed her brain, and I was amazed how much it still shocked me to see how completely brainwashed and irrational she was. Hearing it in person was ten times more jarring than reading it in a text.
After two hours of more of the same, I started to wrap things up. I knew Bill was waiting for her outside to drive her back to his place.
“Darling, I am not trying to limit your life or make it harder, and I wish I could prove that to you,” I told her. “But from the moment I gave birth to you, my job was to protect you. And that’s what I am doing now. It may not feel that way to you or to the group, but this is how I am showing you love. I am fighting for you because I believe you’re involved with people who are harming you.”
I reached across the table to take her hand.
“I’ve missed you, and I love you so much. You may not understand what I’m doing, and I may not understand you. But I love you, and I will always love you—with every fiber of my being.”
“I—I think this is the most honest we’ve been with each other in a long time,” India said.
When we got up and hugged, we both had tears in our eyes.
The meeting ended in a sweet, perfect way—with a magical purse mom moment. India needed eye drops. And then she needed digestive enzymes. And then she needed a mint. So I fished around in my purse and pulled out all three for her. I felt like Mary Poppins: anything she needed, I magically had for her. It felt wonderful to be able to say yes to her after so many nos, even if it was little things. It felt wonderful to have the most basic parent-child exchange in which she needed something, and I gave it.
For a minute, I felt like a nurturing mom again.
“Will I see you again on this trip?” I asked as she was leaving the table.
“I’ll think about it.”
We hugged and kissed, and told each other “I love you.”
It had been a two-hour conversation with the two Indias: the real India and her cult persona. In the end, I think Real India won out. I left the restaurant feeling happy and hopeful, as if we’d taken a step in the right direction together—finally. And India seemed to feel that way, too.
But something went wrong in the hours after our meeting. I got a nasty text from Bill shortly after India and I parted, reaming me out.
Well, that didn’t work out. I really wish you’d see our daughter as the beautiful woman she is rather than the way you are prepared to ridicule and destroy her life for your own ambitions.
What a lightweight move on your part. Heartless. So Sad. Such fake concern.
What the—?
Someone from the cult must have gotten to her since our meeting, and then India dispatched her father as the nearest flying monkey available. Her requests for me to stop the book and docuseries were light and smooth as silk when we talked, but they hadn’t worked. So now Bill was being sent to do the bad-cop hatchet job on me—it was the only strategy left.
It was Keith’s way, I knew, of showing me that no matter how ho
peful I was feeling for those few hours after my time with India, my love had no effect on her whatsoever and that nothing would pierce the armor of his brainwashing, not even a mother’s heart.
She belongs to me, he was saying. Her psyche is impervious to your love.
Evil bastard. Raniere’s devious darkness was continually working below the surface, sucking up India’s beautiful light like the devil possessing an angel.
This had to stop. It had to stop before it was too late.
Frank called, and after I explained the India meeting and Bill’s text, he got all prophetic on me: “In her darkest hour,” he said, “she stands alone.”
And he meant me, not India. Frank, the snake eater, was reminding me that when you took a stand for someone or something, you sometimes found yourself on the field of battle by yourself—as he had done many times, trying to fight Keith.
He was right. And I’d made a vow to fight forever. But . . . I was desperate for something to give, for both my sake and India’s.
Three days later, I got a call from one of my lawyers.
“In the next month or so, we’ll have arrests,” he promised, “and you’ll be pleased. I can’t say anything more, but I can tell you this: the charges will be huge, Catherine. Huge.”
Hurry, was all I could think. Please hurry!
17
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CAPTURED
As the saying goes, there is no rest for the weary.
Six weeks later, on March 26—after ten anxiety-ridden months—I took my very first, much-needed moment to stop and pamper myself. I lay down on a spa table to get a facial; I was so exhausted, I started to fall asleep.
Fifteen minutes into it, my phone went berserk. Beep after beep after beep until I finally couldn’t ignore it. Maybe an emergency with the kids?
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