Children of Paradise: A Novel Read online

  On the early drive back to the port, they meet an unusual traffic jam. A cart has broken down in the road, and it seems the driver might be waiting for volunteers to amass in sufficient numbers to help him drag the cart and horse to one side. But when the jeep pulls almost to the front of the queue of vehicles inching around the accident, it becomes clear that the long cart laden with huge logs looks fine, with all four of its wheels upright on the two axles, but the horse that is supposed to pull the cargo slumps on all fours even as the owner repeatedly lashes the unresponsive beast with a long and very thick stick.

  The noise of the beating makes Trina cover her ears. Joyce holds on to Trina to gain comfort as much as to offer it. The stick sounds like it should snap in two or the horse’s flesh tear free or its bones shatter. Each lash seems to reverberate in the jeep. Joyce slams her fist on the front of her seat and orders the driver to unlock the doors. The driver says he knows things out there must look bad, but the commune cannot get involved with the daily life of the city. Joyce tells the driver that unless he unlocks the door immediately, she will break the glass and climb out the jeep’s window. Trina stops cringing, distracted by Joyce’s protest. The driver looks at the other armed guard in the front seat, who avoids his eyes, and so he sends his visual appeal to Kevin and Eric, who shrug. He presses the button and unlocks the doors. Joyce storms out of the jeep. The driver implores her to ignore the melee, which he says is going on right now on every street, and would she want them to solve all of them? Joyce pushes her way to the front of the onlookers and shouts at the man:

  —Can’t you see the beast is spent?

  —Spent? This beast owes me.

  The man is indignant. He turns and again swings his stick at the horse. Joyce hurries back to the jeep and asks Eric for his rifle. The guard looks at her with enough incredulity to stop a charging elephant in its tracks. But Joyce pulls the rifle away from his grasp, through the open window. It is the same incredulity in the co-driver that keeps him from resisting her. Joyce marches back through the crowd parting for her, and she approaches the cart. The horse now lies on its side, and the cart man looms over it with his long stick and swings away. He might be beating dust out of a carpet or driving a large stave into the ground. He grunts with the effort of his lashes. This time Eric and Kevin brandish their rifles and follow Joyce. The crowd ducks out of her way. She aims shakily and fires. People nearest to her dive and run. The man swinging the stick stops and turns to face Joyce. She lowers the rifle and thanks him for his undivided attention and says the next bullet will not be into the air.

  —Drop the stick.

  Joyce supports the rifle with palms that move about the barrel as if trying to recognize by touch exactly what it is that those hands bear. She aims it straight at the driver of the cart. The man curses and drops the stick.

  —Thank you.

  The cart owner shrugs. Murmurs sweep around the growing group of bystanders. He glances at them but cannot make out if the whispers condone or condemn Joyce’s actions or his. Joyce hands her rifle to Kevin, who now has two of them to handle.

  Joyce snatches the whip from the cart owner. She lifts the stick and brings it down hard on the legs of the cart driver, who skips and moves toward her as if to retaliate but thinks better of it as he sees the guards aiming rifles at him. Joyce hits the man two more times, each blow harder than the one before. She is crying, and the cart driver capitulates and says he is sorry for being rude and promises to take better care of his horse.

  —The blasted animal is letting me down. I got deliveries to make; many mouths to feed.

  —You’re destroying your livelihood in a cruel fashion.

  Joyce hands his stick to him and dries her eyes on her dress and asks the cart driver how much it would cost him to rest the horse for a couple of days and hire another beast of burden to finish his day’s work. The cart driver rubs his bruised leg and names a price. Joyce suggests a lower price. The cart driver throws out a third figure a little above Joyce’s. They agree. Joyce asks Kevin and Eric to hand over the notes, and the crowd applauds and Joyce finds extra notes for all of them, and the cheers follow them as they drive away.

  On their way to the port, they joke about the look on the cart man’s face. The guards tell Joyce that she is a true representative of the People’s Commune, and brave. They pass vendors with ripe fruit hanging on string from rickety stalls, a gauntlet of honey and flower smells and loud inducements to stop and taste and buy a little something with wide gestures and smiling, inviting faces. They pass schoolchildren in pressed uniforms with satchels, filing along the roadside with combed hair and neat plaits and oiled faces, elbows, and knees. And sheep and goats meandering into the lane of traffic, some dragging a rope they must have chewed through or pulled free from some pen. Chickens peck at minuscule grub in the roadside pebbles. Dogs trot from shade to shade and eye each other cautiously, more so than the deadlier vehicles passing inches from them. Joyce hugs Trina, and Trina keeps hold of her mother all the way to the port.

  The captain and first mate look glad to meet them again, and the return journey includes much respectful trust shown by Kevin and Eric to Joyce. They tell the story of the cart man and his horse, and the captain and first mate nod and look at Joyce with new eyes.

  The first mate jumps into the conversation:

  —Captain, tell Trina one of your Anansi stories.

  —Cousin, you want me to bore the child to tears.

  —What’s Anansi?

  —You mean who, Trina. He’s a spider character, and he likes to play tricks on everyone.

  —Did you make him up?

  —No. He comes all the way from Africa.

  —Trina, you’re making your mother look bad. Don’t you remember those Brer Rabbit stories?

  —I know, Mom. But I want to hear an Anansi story from Mr. Captain. Please.

  —The captain’s busy, Trina. We’re almost at the commune.

  —I’m never too busy to tell Anansi stories. We could start one and finish it next time.

  —Yes, Mr. Aubrey Captain, tell me one.

  —Just Captain will do, Trina. So you want to hear about Anansi?

  —Yes, Captain.

  Trina sits next to the captain as he commands the Coffee, and she listens to one of his Anansi stories, something about the spider having to share a hand of bananas with his wife and four children and he gives one banana to each of them and he has none left for himself and so he hangs his head and waits and his family feels sorry for him and each child and his wife break off a quarter of their banana and give it to him and he ends up with the most banana. The captain ends by saying:

  —What a clever scamp!

  Trina agrees. The captain hands the wheel to his first mate and strolls over to talk with Joyce. Later they dock to eat and stretch their legs, and the captain makes sure he finds Joyce and Trina for company. The first mate sits with Trina to look at her sketches, and this gives the captain time with Joyce. Kevin and Eric no longer look warily at outsiders, at least not their present company; instead, they seem engrossed in conversation with each other.

  As the Coffee sidles up to the commune’s dock, the captain swears it is the fastest voyage he has ever made. They shake hands. All agree with some regret in their voices that this particular journey has come to an end until the captain says in jest:

  —As must all our journeys in this sweet life, my friends.

  Joyce, Eric, Kevin, and Trina stop and look at the captain for a moment, and they leave with a darkened demeanor, a gloom that the captain and his first mate puzzle over after their friends have left.

  —The feeling that comes over you when someone walks over your grave?

  —Like they saw a ghost.

  —You mean us?

  —No, themselves.

  FOUR

  The settlers battle the wild every day. Light crawls up the trunks of trees all around the settlement. Red flames lick the branches and leaves as the sun buries itself in the
horizon. A flock of parakeets spreads a bright palette across the stretched canvas of sky. Their notes are sharp and wild, like an orchestra warming up. Trina cranes her neck for the swirl and picture of them. The flock disappears into the trees, and the forest echoes with the cutting sound of birds playing hide-and-seek. She waits for clouds to sweep by with sketches of a city. Each group of buildings that shifts in and out of view in that cloud drift resembles the city she left long ago. Sometimes she sees hills, faces, and animals. But never the millions of trees that surround her. A forest has no reflection. And it reflects nothing. It only absorbs.

  The preacher emerges from his house; the two bodyguards stationed at the front door jump to attention, and the children freeze in the middle of their trash collecting. He looks around and calls for Trina. She steps forward and quickly wipes her face and hands on her dress and tries to smooth it in an effort to look presentable as she approaches him. He waves at the other children to carry on. The children spring back into action. Ryan and Rose resume their work after positioning themselves so they can look at Trina and the preacher. He hands Trina his handkerchief. She seems reluctant to take it, and he nods and pushes it at her a second time, and she takes it and wipes sweat from her face, neck, arms, and hands. She tries to hand the handkerchief back but he tells her to keep it. He leads her toward the cage, but she pulls against him. He releases his grip on her arm and walks up to the cage and swivels his back against it. Adam charges toward the bars, where the man presses his back. Trina covers her eyes and peeps through her fingers. Adam reaches the bars and spins around and fits his much broader back to the preacher’s. Adam turns his head to the side and glances over his right shoulder to catch a glimpse of his master and of Trina, to see what they will do next and what will be required of him. The commune leader gestures to Trina. She takes small, slow steps toward the cage and freezes as Joyce screams:

  —Trina! Come to your mother right now.

  The two bodyguards at the house take a couple of steps toward Trina’s mother with the butts of their rifles ready to stop her. The preacher raises his arm and they stop in their tracks. They look at him to see what he wants them to do about Joyce’s public display of parental insubordination. Father beckons again to Trina to come to him, and this time he trains his eyes on Trina’s mother. His stare works its ministry on her. His way of looking without blinking and with his black eyes apparently devoid of emotion prefigures instances of huge upheaval in the commune, long scenes of public humiliation for a follower gone astray and in need of correction, hours of sermonizing from the evening into early morning. He stares at something hidden in Trina’s mother, something deposited by him in her skull for safekeeping, and now he wants to see that hidden thing again to make sure not only that it is still there, just where he left it, but that the secret property remains in the same mint condition in which he deposited it. She gave him her love and this love was not hers to take back, just as she trusted his teachings and that trust would be taken to the grave. Trina’s mother abandons her summons of her daughter. Her lips stop working. All the strength in her body drains from her and takes her legs from under her. She flops to the ground right there in the dirt.

  Trina reacts by quickening her pace toward the preacher. He holds out his arms and she offers her outstretched hands to him. He grasps her hands, pulls her next to him, and turns around to face the cage. He pushes her arms into the cage and places her hands directly on the back of the gorilla. Rose wants to rush to Trina’s aid, but Ryan holds on to her. Joyce waves at them. The two walk over quickly to Joyce’s side, and she holds on to them as they help her to her feet. Trina feels giddy. But the man’s arms are warm, and the gorilla’s back warmer and hard, and the hairs on it bristly like something she should pull away from. But she stays very still and tries to keep breathing, inhaling more deeply with each breath. Adam’s broad back lifts and falls. Trina feels the man’s hands on hers. Her hands under his direction can touch anything, even fire, and remain unscathed. He is Father to all. He plucked each and every one of them from their mad and aimless ways and brought them to the wilderness and placed them one step closer to paradise. The man moves her hands around on the gorilla’s back and releases his grip on her hands and begins to scratch the gorilla’s back, and Trina scratches as well, the same action of sinking her fingers into the tough hair and muscle. The gorilla slumps to the floor of his cage, and the man and Trina stoop and keep up their scratching. The man gives Trina a mango; her empty belly growls and her mouth waters, but she knows what she has to do without any instruction. She pushes the mango. He takes the fruit between his pouted lips before steadying it with his hands.

  —You are practicing with your new flute?

  —Yes, Father.

  —You should practice right here by the cage. Adam likes music and he likes you.

  —Yes, Father.

  The preacher stands. He is dirty. He helps Trina up and they walk to her mother. Ryan and Rose take a few steps back from Joyce. The preacher offers his hand to Trina’s mother, and she takes it in her dusty condition with her face wet and her nose running. He takes his handkerchief from Trina and offers it to Joyce. She shakes her head. He keeps his hand extended toward her. His eyes soften. He smiles. She smiles back. She takes the dirty handkerchief and wipes her eyes and nose. The preacher places Trina’s hand in her mother’s hand, and before he turns from them, he asks that they make sure they sit in the front row at his evening sermon. He disappears with his assistants and two bodyguards close behind him before Trina’s mother can return his soiled handkerchief. He walks in long urgent strides as if late for another appointment but heads straight back to his private quarters, the only building in the compound painted white and standing apart from all the others.

  Trina and Joyce remain on the spot until the preacher enters his house with his three assistants. The two bodyguards close the front door and station themselves on either side of it. Joyce looks at Trina’s face and plants a kiss on each cheek. She shakes her head and gazes up at the sky and back at the white house with the guards, where the preacher who brought them over the ocean to their retreat in the middle of the jungle dreams up his plots for their lives. His eyes and his words led them all to this remote location. He promised them it would be temporary. Not him so much as his eyes and his words. No one she knows can resist the two. And everyone around here, including Joyce, hopes his words and his certainty will bring them salvation right here on earth.

  Until her arrival in this country, Joyce cannot remember meeting another man to compare with the preacher. Her view of him as someone who stood at the apex of a pyramid with everyone else stacked on a broad plain below remained intact up to the day she met the captain onboard the Coffee with his young first mate for that first journey upriver from the capital to the commune. Her nonstop talk about the preacher and his vision for their community hid the fact that in her head, the captain grew to share that privileged position on the highest plinth. Every detail she and Trina clamped eyes on in their first trip upriver, from the city to the commune, confirmed the miracle of the place. They wanted to know everything about everything they saw, heard, felt, smelled, and tasted. At the time, the captain appeared glad to indulge them, even if mother and child were indistinguishable in their unbridled enthusiasm for the interior of the country.

  The preacher emerges again from his house earlier that evening and visits Adam, who nods and smiles along with the man’s nods and smiles. Father lingers and Adam offers his back. The preacher scratches it. Adam’s eyes relax. After the preacher scratches Adam’s back, he turns and offers his back to Adam. Surprised, Adam takes a step away from the bars of the cage. His eyes shift in rapid thought. But the preacher waits, and Adam steps close to the bars and scratches the man’s back the same way the man scratches Adam’s, with both hands at the same time. Adam tears Father’s white shirt, and red spots blossom on the preacher’s back, and he moves away quickly. The commune leader steps out of reach of Adam’s arms, smiling.
Adam returns a mirror image of that smile as if his face looked exactly like Father’s face. The preacher yawns and stretches and heads back to his house. Adam yawns loudly, stretches, and lumbers to the bed at the back of his cage.

  The preacher and all the people, children included, move and make noises that Adam feels mimic his movements and sounds. He thinks his body splinters into a thousand pieces to occupy a large clearing in the forest. He watches the entire commune’s comings and goings and feels parts of him leave the confines of his cage and roam the compound at will. Looking at the people going about their business leaves him feeling he is all of them rolled into one. This feeling, that his body mirrors a thousand fragments made of people, intensifies when he peers at the sky and follows the splayed wings of solo birds, or latches on to a flock, as the whole assembly swirls in the breeze. Adam believes his body belongs to their bodies. They are all the parts of him.

  FIVE

  Adam’s bones ache. His skin tingles with a small current rising to the surface. Storm clouds gather and block the sun. Darkness drops without a parachute. A crack of lightning and drumroll of thunder stop the adults at their chores and the children in the middle of school. Commune members working in the open, trimming bushes, uprooting weeds, tending to farm animals, securing barbed wire fences, all dart for shelter. A few large drops bang on the tin roofs. Fat drops, wide apart and able to kick up dust and slap it down again. The drops stitch together and wall up space. They multiply and become a barrage of stones on the galvanized zinc. The pigs squeal and the dogs bark. Adam hoots and stands back from the front of his cage. The guards shout to the heavens to be quiet before they wake Father, but more lightning flashes and a tree tumbles to the forest floor. The thunder persists, rolling across the compound in a stampede on the ground and in the air, above the heads of the guards. Some guards grab their rifles, aim at the sky, and make firing noises with their mouths. Children scream with each rip of thunder. A guard accidentally pulls the trigger on his rifle, and it barely registers above the storm. Adam jumps into the air and shrieks and curls up in a tight bundle with his arms around his head to hide his face and cover his ears. The sound of the rain lashing at vegetation and earth reminds him of his back getting beaten by sticks and the butts of rifles.