Passage Read Free

evening and I suppose I might have answered, ‘What are you talking about? I’m Paul Bannerman. We just spent the night together.’
    Instead I said, ‘I am Paul.’
    ‘Why are you here?’
    Again, it’s easy for me now to imagine myself joking, saying, ‘You brought me here, you clown’, but I was then a young man – a boy, really – and I didn’t have the confidence for that kind of thing. Also – and I think anyone who’s ever seen a magician or hypnotist will understand – I felt very much like I wanted to go along with things, rather than spoil the fun for everyone, so I said, ‘I come seeking answers.’
    ‘What are your questions?’ Brother Ruhamah asked.
    I said, ‘I don’t know.’
    ‘That is a lie!’ he shouted. ‘You do know why you’re here! You’re here because whatever you did before was false and wrong and you seek what’s right and good!’
    Head down I nodded, and, feeling both a bit silly and dazed, agreed.
    ‘You’re lost, aren’t you?’
    Was I lost? In the literal sense I certainly was since I had no idea, at that time, where in Victoria we were. But also, like many on the cusp of adulthood, I was unsure about what lay ahead. And so I said, ‘Yes, I am lost.’
    ‘You’re in need of salvation!’
    I nodded again. Why not?
    ‘We here – the Jesus People – we offer salvation. But are you prepared to live the word of Christ?’
    I had no other plan, and no better idea, so I told him I was, and Brother Ruhamah fell upon me, and then so did everyone else. It felt pretty good, being at the centre of a hugging circle. If I had a complaint, it was that the Jesus People didn’t smell all that good – and, sadly for a teenage boy normally delighted to have any contact with the opposite sex, that included the women.
    ‘Are you ready now to repent your sin and abandon your past, to serve the Lord, now and forever, AMEN?’
    Once again, I nodded.
    Now I’m sure there are people who are going to say, ‘Well, you must have been off your rocker, Paul. What kind of dope would fall for that kind of thing?’ All I can say is this: the Longhouse was warm; I was an unsophisticated and therefore somewhat malleable adolescent; and the people around me, in their simple tunics, with their faces naked of cynicism and guile, had about them a pure kind of happiness that was terrifically appealing to a young man whose family life had been ruptured, and who was still struggling to find his feet.
    I slept that night in a room with two new friends – Brother Dawid was in the wooden bunk above me, while Brother Yoav was in the bottom bunk, opposite. When I woke, it was to the sound of a rooster. It was barely dawn, and yet I was sent to work in the vegetable patch, pulling up weeds from around the radishes. Two hours into our labours, breakfast was served. There were eggs from the henhouse, and warm rolls. I was desperate for coffee, but was told that coffee – not to mention tea, tobacco, sugar and alcohol – was not permitted anywhere on the property.
    ‘You need to break the hold those artificial stimulants have on you,’ Brother Dawid said.
    I agreed, but would have killed for a cigarette.
    From breakfast I went to morning prayers and then to work in the paddocks. When I asked what it was we were supposed to do, I was told that we’d be putting rocks into wheelbarrows and moving them into a heap.
    (I did that for many months, actually. Nobody ever said why.)
    With noon came Sisters in bonnets. They hand-delivered lunch from woven baskets: rolls and sandwiches made from stale bread, some of it green and furry.
    ‘Where do you get your bread?’ I asked.
    Brother Dawid said, ‘So much in our society is wasted’, and I guess that meant ‘from the rubbish bin’.
    Evening came and with it more lectures, not by Brother Ruhamah this time but by one of the band of Elder Brothers. Then it was bed, and the sleep of the dead, and waking at dawn to pull weeds from the garden again.
    I had a