Eventually they emerged from the tent. Mitchell looked at me hungrily. I shivered in my soul. “Go to bed,” he told me.
I stood and walked toward the tent, my head down. Mitchell followed me into the tent to rape me.
It turned out to be a long night.
*
The next day, Mitchell got up and announced that he was going down into the city.
I knew what was going to happen to me when he got back. All day long I waited, feeling as if a guillotine were hanging over my head. I didn’t eat at all that day. Not a thing. I knew from sad experience that the effects of alcohol would hit me much quicker if I drank on an empty stomach and I wanted my stomach completely empty when he came back.
Mitchell came stumbling back into camp about midafternoon. He brought food, and the regular assortment of alcohol, all of it the hard stuff.
“Drink this!” he commanded, handing me one of the bottles. “Then we’re going to do that other thing.”
I drank willingly. I desperately wanted the dulling effects of the alcohol to numb my senses before the nightmare began.
He watched me drink, then smiled. I don’t know if he wanted to get me drunk, but I suppose he did. I think he knew it was the only way I was going to be able to do what he intended.
We finished half a bottle. He and Barzee started the demonstration. Then he forced me to do the same.
During this experience, the same words kept rolling around in my head: Think about your family. Remember that they love you. Do whatever it takes to protect them. Whatever it takes to survive.
*
Sometime later, I don’t remember how long, it might even have been the same day, I finally got the smallest chance of revenge. He tried to kiss me and I bit his tongue. Bit it hard. He jerked back, furious. I thought he was going to hit me. He held his mouth and screamed in rage. Then he stared me down, his face contorted in pain. “If you ever do that again, I’ll never have sex with you! You understand that, Esther? If you hurt me, I’ll never have sex with you again. You’ll be the most miserable woman in the world!”
I stared at him, utterly dumbfounded.
But that pretty much describes Brian David Mitchell’s mind. That pretty much is a peek into his soul. In his opinion, I was the one who was getting the good end of the deal. I owed him for what he was doing to me. I was the luckiest girl in the world. I had the great pleasure, the great distinction, of having him abuse me every day. And if I ever did anything to make him reject me, I would be the most miserable woman in the world.
I can’t even begin to tell you how messed up that is to me.
22.
Betrayal
“Why did you do this to me?” I once asked him after he had just raped me.
Mitchell looked at me, taking his time to answer.
“What did I ever do to you to deserve this?”
Mitchell remained quiet, thinking, which told me that a “prophetic” announcement was coming. I knew the routine now. When the prophet spoke, he spoke with authority, and it took a little time to generate an appropriately somber weight to his words.
It was early in the afternoon, mid-July, the hottest and driest days of summer. We were sitting around our camp doing pretty much nothing, which was pretty much what we did every afternoon. The air was calm and it was hot, the sky a reflective silver-gray. Dust and dandelion seeds floated through the trees. It was quiet. It seemed even the birds were too tired to chirp or move among the branches. I kept my eyes on him. I wanted an answer.
“I didn’t deserve this,” I said in a low voice, almost talking to myself.
“It wasn’t me,” he finally said.
I stared at him, defiant. Of course it was you! I wanted to scream.
Barzee lifted her eyes, paying close attention now. She liked it when I defied him, at least a part of her did. Sometimes she got tired of playing second fiddle, and I think she was hoping he would put me in my place.
“Why did you take me? Why do this to me?” I asked a final time.
Mitchell took a deep breath, as if he were forcing himself to be patient with a slow child. “We’ve been through this a thousand times before.”
I slowly shook my head, which instantly made him angry.
“You are lucky, Esther,” he sneered. “Don’t forget that. God could have chosen another girl, but out of His great goodness He chose you.”
It’s a good thing that I didn’t believe him or I would have hated God forever.
“You would do well to show a little gratitude,” he sneered again.