It turned out that I was wrong.
I sat there, defiant. He stared back at me. As long as it takes, the fierce look on his face seemed to say. Minutes went by, the two of us staring at each other. Five minutes. Ten.
Throughout this time, one thought kept rolling around in my mind: Whatever it takes to survive.
I wanted to live. I wanted to get back to my family. I wanted to be rescued. And one day I might be. But he wasn’t going to let me eat or drink or sleep until I’d drunk the wine.
And so I drank it. And to this day, the smell of wine will almost instantly make me sick.
I sipped the cup and tried to pass it on, but Mitchell would have none of that. I had to drink the whole thing. And so I forced it down. I thought it tasted terrible. I gagged a bit, but finished the cup. He filled it up again. “This too!” he commanded. I forced it down as well. He filled it once again. I was forced to drink it down.
He knew that was enough. So he finally let me eat.
I dove in. I was so hungry. But the fog inside my mind was growing thicker. I was getting slower. A few minutes later, a little mouse snuck around the corner of the tent, casting a flickering shadow in the dim light. All of us turned to watch him. Mitchell picked up a piece of cheese and threw it to him. The little mouse cautiously approached it, sniffed, then picked it up and scampered back into the shadows. I felt angry. This was our food! I didn’t want to waste it. I didn’t want to go hungry ever again.
After eating, I felt exhausted. My belly was full of food and my blood was full of wine. I was so tired. I moved slowly toward the tent. The moment I lay down, I was asleep.
Soon after, Mitchell came in to rape me. I woke up and tried to fight him, but I was barely even conscious. I wanted desperately to stay within myself, to stay in my right mind, but it was too late, and he did what he did.
After, I lay on the mattress, feeling as low as I had ever felt. I felt terrible about the wine. I felt terrible about the rape. And as I lay there, I began to understand why some people might start to drink.
19.
Routine
Although the days began to run together, I never lost count of them. The fourth day. The fifth. A week. The second week. I was aware of every minute, every hour, every sunrise and sunset. In some ways, it never really hit me that time was starting to pass by. Emotionally, I was in it for the long haul. Thirty years until he dies, was what I kept thinking at the time. Every day was long and painful. I was bored. I was scared. I was humiliated, homesick, and lonely.
All night long, Mitchell was in and out of the tent, constantly interrupting my sleep as he got up to exercise in the dark. He thought that exercise could heal pretty much anything, so he would get up and go outside and bounce up and down on one foot and then the other, then do a lot of deep breathing. He was always anxious, never able to relax, even in the middle of the night. Barzee didn’t seem to notice that he was always up and down. At least, she never complained. I’m pretty sure she always slept through the night. After a while, I started sleeping through his nightly exercising too.
Every day was much the same. We would get up with the sun. After climbing out of the tent, the first thing we did was have a morning devotional. We’d start out with a hymn from Barzee’s collection of religious songs. There was no “Onward, Christian Soldiers” or “Welcome to Sunday School” type of hymns in her collection. No, her songbook contained only hymns that were pointedly focused on God. We’d sing, then read from the scriptures or from Mitchell’s book, which was considered scripture too. Then we’d pray. Oh, how we’d pray! Brian David Mitchell had more to say to heaven than any other man in the world. Forty-five minutes was the norm. Kneeling. Eyes closed. Head down. My legs would cramp and my knees would hurt. And I’d be bored beyond my own tears.
Maybe then he’d rape me. Or maybe he’d wait until the afternoon. Or maybe that night. Or maybe one and then the other.
“Shearjashub, you are so lucky,” he would remind me after the abuse. “I brought you out of sin. I brought you out of the ugly world.”