Seductive Poison (17 page)

Since my move onto Maria’s floor, she had begun to act strangely toward me. I felt as though she wasn’t so sure Father should trust me, as though I wasn’t as devoted as she was. On one occasion, several weeks prior, Father had asked that she instruct me on some of her work on the Finance Committee so that I could take it over from her. He had explained to us both that Maria was overloaded and had lost a great deal of weight with the worries of her new responsibilities. Jim had discussed the matter with Carolyn and she had recommended that he seek help from me. I was told I would soon have to take over all the dealings with the banks—substantial deposits and wire transfers, which circumvented paper trails, and cash transfers in preparation for Jim’s escape from the United States for the safety of Guyana. We had much of the congregation, perhaps 600 people, there already.

When Maria and I were alone she was aloof, troubled, and would barely look at me. I wondered “what I had done to make her dislike me. Perhaps she didn’t want me included in the clique of the most trusted. Was she more perceptive than Father? Maybe she knew I had faltering thoughts.

I picked up my suits at I. Magnin, and late that evening, Carolyn, Maria, and I flew to Los Angeles, where we were vaccinated for yellow fever and could depart from the United States without the threat of someone familiar seeing us at the airport. Carolyn had laughed when she saw my hair that afternoon, but consoled me that now I looked at least twenty-one. The back had been cut into a duck tail and the front had been permed to give me height and stature. To add insult to injury, the fake eyeglasses I wore to make me look older hung from my neck on an old-lady chain.

The Temple’s modus operandi was to always assume you were
being followed, and to believe that if anything could go wrong, it would. At eleven o’clock in the evening we boarded a Pan Am flight for Panama. Once we were in the air, a giddiness washed over me. I was excited by the intrigue of it all. When nearby passengers had drifted off to sleep, Carolyn deemed it safe to speak.

“Did you understand what Jim was saying?” She looked at me.

I nodded, wondering why she had addressed her question to me. Had she already discussed this with Maria?

“You understand, then, that if you were to ever leave the Cause, you would be arrested. We are not really a church, but a socialist organization. We must pretend to be a church so we’re not taxed by the government. That’s why we’re moving our money out of the country, so we will have access to the funds for use in the Promised Land. This way the CIA will not be able to freeze our assets. We must be very cautious. Jim received word that Interpol has been watching us.”

I felt a little ill at ease. I wondered if Robin Hood had felt both fear and excitement as he hid from the law and continued to give to the poor.

“The bank officials must meet each of the account signatories,” Carolyn continued. “Of course, these are formalities we must abide by and yet must be very careful of. They do not know who we are, only that we’re opening accounts for Christian corporations involved in humanitarian projects. The less said the better. Our first appointment is tomorrow at the Banco de Panama.”

Yes, I thought, with Robin Hood, too, the end justified the means.

Hours later, as our plane began its descent into a new chapter of my life, I bit my lip to keep from smiling. All the pain from the previous months, the doubts, the thoughts of leaving, were forgotten. I was now a trusted insider. I had made it! I was barely twenty-one and had surpassed Philip, Larry, and Karen. If only I could tell my parents.

Stepping into the hot, muggy air of Panama, I wondered if Jonestown was like this. By now, Mark had been there for two years. He had served Father well. Besides getting the land burned and ready for planting, he was studying to become captain of the ship the Temple had purchased in Guyana. I wondered if he ever thought of me. I had secretly dreamed we would have a child together someday, but I knew, of course, that this was bourgeois nonsense in a world filled with danger.

Carolyn was already flirting with one of the agents in order to move us swiftly through Customs. With a farewell wave to the young men in uniform, we moved out to the street where we hailed a taxi. Each of us was carrying several thousand dollars in our money belts. Much later, Teresa would reveal to me how the majority of our funds had already been taken abroad ahead of us by Carolyn and other members whose identities were kept strictly secret. They had taped some of the cash onto their bodies, sewn some of it into clothing, and camouflaged the rest inside hundreds of Tampax and Kotex boxes that the agents were mortified to touch, let alone look through.

Grunting, the cabdriver hoisted our luggage into his trunk. I took a luxuriously deep, disloyal breath of his cigarette smoke and we tore out of the airport to the Hotel Suez. Teresa, who had organized part of the cash transfer ahead of time, was waiting for us in the lobby. She had already been there a week with two of Jim’s trusted legal advisers, John and Tim. There were legal issues that had to be addressed in setting up offshore corporations so Father had had to include them, a decision that would later prove to have been a mistake.

Teresa greeted us. “I made a banking appointment for later this afternoon.” She showed us to the antiquated elevator. With all the commotion in the lobby, I hadn’t noticed Teresa’s hair. It, too, was different; she had a soft-curl perm that made her look sweet and feminine. And she looked grown-up in her white silk blouse, dark blue trousers, and navy blue heels. Of course, Carolyn and Maria always looked put together with their long dark tresses drawn back into buns and their natural poise. As we rode up to our floor, Teresa gave Maria and me further instructions.

“These meetings will be with bank executives, mostly older gentlemen. Usually one or two are present. They ask lots of questions, so look attentive and knowledgeable, shake your head when it seems appropriate, but please, let Carolyn and me do the talking. When it’s all over, it’s imperative,” she gave me a look, “that you forget what you heard.” I grinned and rolled my eyes at such a ludicrous idea. Maria saw my grin and glared at me.

“Just try, okay?” Teresa went on. “It could be dangerous. The United States Government has decreed it illegal to have foreign accounts and not report them. That’s why you can’t have outside jobs when you return. On various tax forms they ask about your
financial dealings. For your sake, Jim’s, and our Cause’s, don’t remember any of this …” Little did I know that even though I certainly tried to comply, I remembered most of it and would later be able to reconstruct major financial transactions when I was collaborating with the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and other government agencies trying to sort out the aftermath of the Peoples Temple’s affairs. My memory proved valuable. Even today, I wonder how it was possible that my unconscious defied the rules and orders I was so willing to conform to.

Stepping off the elevator, I noticed the faded and worn hall runner. As Teresa opened the door to our room, years of other people’s stays wafted out. It was dark inside. Maria put her belongings on the bed where Carolyn had tossed hers. I put my things on Teresa’s bed and went to the bathroom to freshen up for the meeting. There was no bathtub, just a shower with a worn floral shower curtain speckled with mildew. Near the wall, next to a narrow window, stood a yellow pedestal sink. I scrutinized myself in the oblong mirror. I looked ridiculous with glasses on. Voices and sounds seeped into the bathroom cell from the alley three stories below. I desperately longed to go down to the lobby while my coterie readied themselves. I wanted to watch people bustling about, to imagine what their lives were like. But our mission was secret, we were not allowed to mingle. I wondered why we were in such an old hotel. Surely it called more attention to us.

“Are you done?” Carolyn’s voice called me back. “I want a shower, too.”

After siesta, we were escorted into a walnut-paneled boardroom at the Banco de Panama. The receptionist was elegant in her linen dress. She could not have been much older than I, but she had sophistication, a quality I yearned for. I imagined her life and compared it to mine: while she went to restaurants, theaters, and discotheques, I toiled in the underbrush, helping to free man from his shackles. While she spent her time as she pleased and then went home to her apartment, I endured the hardships and sacrifices of socialism in a commune. Why couldn’t I be a socialist and have a social life, too?

The door opened and two men came in. The younger one had his arms piled high with folders. Teresa introduced us. The well-dressed senior bank executive was already quite familiar with Teresa, spoke mostly to her, and occasionally nodded at Carolyn, Maria, and me.
He seemed quite unaffected by the huge amounts of money being discussed, or by our youth. He remained at all times extremely respectful. He didn’t seem to think we were doing anything illegal. Finally the younger gentleman handed us sheet after sheet of finely printed legal material, each with four bold lines at the bottom. One by one, we signed on our designated line and passed the document on to the next person.

The younger man began to read off a series of numbers each with a specific million-dollar amount associated with it and Teresa became agitated.

“Please,” she interrupted him, “it is not necessary to go into such detail here.”

He smiled and changed the subject to the terms of the transaction. All four of us were signatories but only two had to be present to make any changes to the accounts.

Only as much as we needed to know was to be shared. It was a sound way to ensure that information wasn’t unwisely communicated. Father always said none of us could trust each other. Only Father could be trusted, so the less each of us knew the safer it was. There was no arguing about it even if it sometimes didn’t make sense. The only person who knew everything, apart from Jim, was Carolyn. It was for our own safety, in case we were arrested or given truth serum. Father had told us countless stories of revolutionaries being arrested, strapped down, and administered sodium pentothal so the CIA could extract secrets. The CIA was always up to no good. They had assassinated Che Guevara, Salvador Allende, and many other socialist heroes. They had mounted covert operations to damage and overthrow any organization that threatened capitalism. We always had to watch our backs.

That evening, Maria and Carolyn returned to San Francisco, leaving Teresa and me to attend several more meetings at other banks the following morning. Again, we waited for a few minutes, spoke with a gentleman, signed more papers and signatory cards, shook hands, and moved on.

Later that evening, while Teresa showered, I watched from our balcony as the evening lights began to glow. I thought about the young couples I’d seen walking arm in arm as I rushed from appointment to appointment. They were free to enjoy their lives and I was envious. I marveled at their innocence and yearned to know more intimate details of their happy, unfettered lives. I imagined what it would feel like to hold a boyfriend’s arm, someone who
adored me and thought I was pretty. But these were treasonous feelings, so I quickly pushed them away.

On our last day we went to our Panamanian attorney’s home for lunch and discussed a few more banking matters. We signed more documents for him to keep, then were chauffeured to the airport.

Upon my return, I sensed that Maria’s animosity toward me had become more intense. I wondered if she felt we were rivals. Perhaps she didn’t like my new self-assurance; I was not as solicitous of her now that we were equals.

Maria seemed to have transformed herself into a distinguished governess and I thought she might have begun to believe that John-John was truly her son. When Grace Stoen, the boy’s mother, had left the church, Father had said to John-John, “Your mother is dead. She has joined the enemy forces against us. She left you because she no longer wanted the responsibility of raising the son of God.”

Perhaps Maria, like John-John, really believed that Grace was dead and had obediently taken on the sacred role of being his mother. I did not know yet that Carolyn had actually borne a child of Jim’s, and shared with Maria a world no others could enter. All I knew was that Carolyn had become Maria’s mentor and guardian, Teresa mine.

The more I worked with Teresa, the more devoted I became to her. Unlike Maria, she did not have pretenses about herself or act superior. She was energetic and in charge, but kind to all members, whether they were in leadership or not. After our long midweek meetings, it was Teresa who would stay behind in the auditorium and talk to the elderly members, answering questions and helping them with their problems. She was intensely focused and dedicated to Father and the Cause of socialism. Father always listened to her concerns, her thoughtful suggestions, and often implemented them.

In the summer of 1977, several months after our return from Panama, Teresa came into my room and closed the door.

“Debbie, pack for warm and cold weather. We’ll be away for up to two months.”

She handed me $1,000 and asked me to get some clothing for her as well as for myself. She seemed anxious, as if we were in danger.

“We can’t talk in the building … it’s too dangerous. I’ll meet you at Denny’s in an hour.” This was a new procedure. There were
no hidden transmitters in Denny’s restaurant, and if there were, the noise would be too loud for a receiver to pick up our conversations. Jim had become increasingly cautious about our conversations being monitored and taped since the FBI had broken into the Scientology offices several months earlier. And now that Father was convinced Interpol was monitoring our movements, he was crazed with fear. We had even begun to speak in code. He had increased the number of guards both outside the church premises and inside the building near his apartment. How he got so much information about the escalating campaign against us was a mystery to me. He claimed he had moles and investigators everywhere compiling information for him.

I wondered why we were leaving so soon after our return, but I was glad. It meant going away again and being freed of the daily grind and constant paranoia. On the morning of our departure, Teresa summoned me to Father’s apartment. He was lying on the couch, looking feverish. I wondered if he were becoming ill.