Escaping the Cult: One cult, two stories of survival. Kristina Jones

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      As in the home before, we walked everywhere in silence, but if anything the school routine was even more rigid. Classes were held in a separate annex with different teachers for different subjects. For Word Time I had two teachers, Esther and Jeremiah, an African-American married couple from New York.

      They were as different as chalk and cheese. Jeremiah loved children. He was a gentle giant with a shaved head who made up silly poems to make us laugh and always seemed to know if one of us was feeling down or poorly. He was the first adult I had trusted since Joy had left me and I absolutely adored him. Esther was rotund, as short as he was tall, and with a huge Afro that was almost as wide as her. Her favoured method of communication was a hit around the back of the head with knuckles as hard as steel. I hated her.

      My father had been far less happy since the move, having now been officially demoted. The management backbiting against him that had been brewing since Leah’s departure had got gradually worse, until eventually he was told his services as a Shepherd were no longer required. He was utterly dejected, having worked hard to climb the internal hierarchy since joining. To be removed from his post so casually was like a slap in the face. The few freedoms his seniority had allowed him, such as travel to other homes or having a say in the work my mother did, disappeared overnight.

      But for the five children remaining at home, Matt, Marc, Vincent, Guy and me, this meant we saw much more of him. I missed Joe but I had seen so little of him in the previous commune anyway that his absence didn’t seem so strange. His removal to the Victor Camp had been much harder on my mother, who was wracked with guilt, not that she had much choice in the matter.

      Two months after we moved he had been allowed a long-weekend visit home. On the Sunday, family day, we spent it as always in my parents’ bedroom, but instead of jabbering and organising noisy games of marbles as normal he sat on the end of the bed looking subdued and rigid. We asked questions about the camp and the things they did there. He answered politely but briefly.

      ‘Do you like it there?’ my dad asked. ‘I mean, it is fun like I said it would be? Right?’

      Joe was staring at the floor. ‘Yes, Dad. Sure. We have fun.’ He didn’t look up.

      It was hard to put a finger on it. He just seemed – different.

      After dinner the bus came to pick him up. It had done the rounds of the other nearby communes first so it was already crammed full with miserable-looking teenagers when it got to us. Without a word Joe got on and took a seat.

      As my mother waved goodbye the kindly Jeremiah noticed she was upset. He patted her on the shoulder. ‘Are you OK, Patience? It must be a challenge to say goodbye.’

      She glanced around. Jeremiah’s concern was genuine. The other eyes watching her were not. Her every gesture was being assessed for a negative reaction.

      She gave a brittle little smile. ‘No, no, it’s a blessing. Truly. I am so thankful for it.’ She turned to go back inside, trying not to let them see her cry.

      Vincent, now four, was growing into a naughtier child by the day. The commune aunties and uncles had little patience for what they saw as his spoilt, whining ways. He was smacked and hit often. One uncle hit him so hard with the back of his shoe that he was left badly bruised, and he cried non-stop for three days.

      Perhaps the pain of Joe’s absence was still raw, or maybe it was the fact that she was hormonal, having recently learned she was pregnant again, but something made my usually submissive mother snap as her maternal instinct kicked in. She demanded to speak to a senior Shepherd and put in a formal complaint about the man.

      Instead of supporting a woman, quite rightfully angry at the unacceptable levels of violence meted out to her small son, the Shepherd backed the uncle’s version of events. Mom was labelled a troublemaker and a potential doubter.

      To prevent her ‘backsliding’ even further she was ordered to join a team of pioneers on a mission to Siberia in the Soviet Union. The team was to assess whether the Soviet Union, which was in political turmoil at the end of the Cold War, was ‘sheepy’ – believing – enough for The Family to set up bases there. Their mission was to try to win over new recruits, hold Bible classes and see if they could find wealthy patrons who would help support a commune financially.

      At the next family day she and my dad announced the bad news.

      ‘It’s a great honour for her to have been asked,’ said my dad, somewhat unconvincingly.

      ‘But why does Mommy have to go away?’ Vincent was sitting on her lap, his tearful face buried in her chest. ‘Don’t you love us, Mommy?’

      ‘Oh, my little one. Of course I do. I love you so, so, so much. But Jesus has asked me to do this special favour for him. The people there need his love and I have to go share it with them. If Jesus needs this from me, then we all have to make a little sacrifice, don’t we?’

      She cupped his face in her hands to make him look at her. ‘Jesus needs me, Vincent. For him, who gives us so much love, we have to give ourselves. It won’t be for long, little one.’

      She and Dad exchanged another of their secret looks.

      Later I heard them arguing. It sounded as though Mom was finding this easier than Dad. ‘You are pregnant. I have got to find a way to prevent this.’

      She hissed at him: ‘Marcel, shush. Keep your voice down. If someone overhears you’ll be reported too. And then what? I need you here to take care of the children. I will manage. If it’s Jesus’s will to keep me safe then I will fine.’

      ‘How in Jesus’s name can a pregnant woman be sent to such a godforsaken place? This is not about Jesus. It’s about punishing us both. I won’t have it.’

      She went over and put her arms around him. ‘If this is God’s will then we will survive this test. It’s only for 12 weeks. It will fly by. And when I come back Jesus will reward us with another baby.’

      He nodded at her wanly.

      What my father knew but we children didn’t was that she was being sent close to the city of Chelyabinsk, the site of a former Soviet plutonium production site and one of the most polluted places on earth.

      My father was beside himself with worry. He also felt incredibly guilty. He had fully supported her complaint and encouraged her to do it. So he felt that if anyone should be have been punished it should be him. He pleaded with the Shepherds to reconsider, but to no avail. This plummeted him into a severe depression.

      My youngest brother, Guy, wasn’t yet two years old. He had never been separated from my mom for more than a day, having always slept in the nursery where she worked. The day she left his heart-rending cries of ‘Mommy, Mommy, wan’ my mommy’ rang out through the corridors. I watched as an aunty picked him up to cuddle him, but instead of calming or reassuring him that his mother was coming back she repeated over and over the same old motivational mantra that was supposed to cure everything: ‘Get the victory, get the victory.’

      How was that supposed to comfort a two year old whose mother has been ripped away from him? I decided I would look after him and take my mom’s place until she came back.

      That was easier said than done because usually I only got to see him on family day. Every chance I got I invented an excuse to sneak out of class and dash into the nursery to pick him up for a cuddle or sing him a little song. The aunties who made up the nursery staff СКАЧАТЬ