Children of Paradise: A Novel Read online

  He is their spiritual guide. He instructs them in the deep and varied meanings of his inspired teachings. Any time spent questioning his motives amounts to time subtracted from work on behalf of the commune. To question him is an act of disobedience. How can anyone find the time to doubt him? A person who expends the right amount of effort to hold back the jungle from reclaiming the compound has no time to cultivate doubt. He reminds them of their hostile and isolated jungle location and of the even more hostile forces ranged against them beyond the jungle.

  —Many people in high places, people who think they are high and mighty but who do not know about the Almighty, these deluded people want to bring down our commune and see it fail and break up our holy alliance.

  His people must have absolute trust and absolute faith in him. The preacher nods at Trina and Joyce. They give him a half-smile and wide-eyed look. He turns toward the exit left of the makeshift stage that is no more than a few wooden plinths covered with a thin green carpet. He lifts his right arm and shows a thumbs-up to two guards stationed at that exit, and they disappear into the textured dark. Joyce hugs Trina. Trina looks up at her, questioning. Joyce seems just as puzzled by what they could have done that would be construed as mistrust, especially after Trina’s recent resurrection and induction into the inner circle of those who appear to have won the faith of the preacher. Trina starts to recite the Lord’s Prayer, not out loud to attract more attention, but to herself with barely a move of her lips. She prays in the hope that whatever lies in store for her and her mother is at worst a public dressing-down, some humiliation from the preacher’s tongue, even a public beating by one of the guards. But not time at the bottom of the old well full of spiders. Not sentenced to run the length of the dissenter’s passage, as it is called, made up of two long lines formed by guards and prefects who kick and punch at the head and body. At least a public beating ends fast. Trina knows from the many reports of other children that the key is to be quite still. Trying to dodge or fend off the blows with lifted arms only prolongs the beating. The guards, armed with long sticks, seek a worthy target area and take longer to score a satisfactory hit on a chosen site.

  Trina and Joyce stare at the entrance to the tent. The preacher drinks from a tall flask and dries his face and neck with his towel. People stand and stretch, and a few of them ignore the guards and dash out of the tent for a bathroom break while others whisper about what might happen next. The wait makes Trina giddy. Add to it the puzzle over their part in the lesson, and it proves too much for Trina. She begins to shake from head to toe, and her mother holds her tight and tells her to think of the two of them together at the happiest time in their lives, to just picture that time and place. Trina thinks of California, a clump of trees in a back garden. A hummingbird feeder hangs by the back door. She reclines in a hammock beside her mother. They swing gently and watch the hummingbirds zip to the feeder, balance in the air with wings that beat fast as propellers, and make a small engine noise as the birds direct their long needles of beaks into the syrup before they dart away. Trina trembles less and breathes better.

  Trina and Joyce hug each other, and the people at the front of the room scream and scramble from seats and topple chairs and trip over each other. Guards rush forward and use their sticks to nudge and prod people back to their places. The large black figure of Adam lumbers into the tent on the end of a rope held by three guards. Adam appears sleepy and swipes at the rope, which the men keep at arm’s length. They pull him toward the stage. The preacher nods and smiles at Trina and her mother. He steps close to Adam and presses one hand to the gorilla’s back and offers a banana with the other hand. Adam grabs the banana somewhat clumsily and allows the man to scratch his back as he peels and eats the fruit in one mouthful and hurls the peel at the three men holding his lead. The guards, armed with sticks and stationed at the exits, poke at anyone who does not return to a chair or take a seat on the floor and keep still. The preacher waits for the congregation to settle, and then he gestures to Trina and Joyce to approach him and Adam. Joyce steps forward ahead of Trina. The preacher urges them to step closer. He waits as they edge forward, holding on to each other. He hands mother and child one banana each and indicates that Trina should offer her banana to Adam. Trina holds the banana by the tip and stretches her hand toward Adam. The gorilla swipes the banana. He peels and scarfs it. Again he pelts the guards with the peel. The preacher points and says:

  —Now you, Joyce, offer your banana to this magnificent creature made by the Creator.

  Joyce closes her eyes and holds her banana up toward Adam, and he grabs at it, but his grasp is oddly timed and he overreaches and seizes Joyce’s left hand instead of the banana. Joyce screams and tries to pull away. Adam wants the banana. He simply tightens his grip on her hand for her to surrender the fruit. Joyce screams as Adam crushes her hand. The preacher steps away from the gorilla and gestures to his assistants to bring more fruit for Adam, but Adam appears to want just the fruit that Joyce offered him and none other. He releases her left hand and grabs at her other arm and looks around the stage to see what has become of the fruit. Not seeing it, he thinks Joyce has concealed it somewhere on her body. He proceeds to tear at her clothing. Trina screams along with her mother, and several of the women who stand near the front of the room add their cries to a chorus of panic. The guards beat people with their sticks to restore order in the room. The preacher signals the guards to drag Adam from the tent. When Adam slaps at them, he seems to be slow in his movements, awake but not fully alert.

  The preacher points at Trina and Joyce and says that one of them trusts him and the other does not, and he asks the congregation if they can guess which one is which.

  —Who trusts me? And who does not? Mother or child?

  Everyone points at Joyce, shouting that only the child, Trina, is full of trust. Trina hugs Joyce, who struggles not to whimper and shiver. Joyce’s torn dress reveals several scratches on her arms and body from Adam’s nails. The preacher asks two of his assistants to take Joyce to the infirmary, but he tells Trina, who tries to follow her mother, that she should remain by his side. He kisses Trina on top of her head and tells her that she is much too close to her mother. He places his index finger over his lips, which silences Trina and the congregation. He asks everyone to give Trina a round of applause for her bravery. She did not know what would be asked of her, he points out, but she withstood the test of her trust of him over her fear of what was asked of her. Again the congregation applauds.

  —Trust is so basic an instinct that even a gorilla can detect it. Imagine what God knows about our inner thoughts and feelings if a gorilla, a dumb beast, can detect if we trust him or not, or fear him more than we could ever trust him. Work on bolstering your trust, people.

  —Yes, Father.

  The preacher dismisses the congregation with a wave of his hand. He tells Trina that Joyce will be fine but that she must remain calm and remember everything they talked about earlier. He promptly leaves the tent with four guards and three assistants. The congregation sits for a moment, unsure about the abrupt end to the evening; they begin to move only when the guards point toward the exits with their long sticks. They walk slowly, drained by the harrowing sermon. They ignore the prod of the sticks and barely hear the guards’ orders to move faster and hurry to their beds. They trudge through the dark in a somnambulant state, dreamless because incapable of another nervous impulse, emptied into mere echoes of themselves.

  SEVEN

  Ryan and Rose try to console Trina in the dormitory. They say her mother’s wounds are just scratches and will be cared for at the infirmary. Trina shakes her head and cannot stop her tears. Ryan hugs her and asks if she wants him to get her and the others some bread. His bold offer makes Trina smile. Rose says he should bring two loaves and jam to go with them. A third child says the treat would go down nicely with a cup of tea if he could manage that as well. Trina chuckles along with the others. A quick rap on the door banishes all the children’s sm
iles. They adopt a variety of miserable expressions, from hangdog looks to sour faces to blank impassive stares, just in time to see an assistant to the preacher stride into the dormitory with a paper bag that she hands to Trina. She tells Trina that the preacher himself wants Trina to know he is proud of her conduct at the sermon and that she is a fine example of trust.

  —Is my mother all right?

  —She’ll be fine, only a few scratches and a slightly sprained wrist.

  —Can I see her?

  —It’s very late now. In the morning.

  Trina thanks her and waits for her to leave the dormitory, then opens the twisted top of the brown paper bag. Inside she finds a chocolate bar, a pack of sweet wafers sandwiched with cream, a packet of salted peanuts, chewing gum (which the children are never allowed to have without special permission), and a bag of salted potato chips. Trina offers the treats to the entire dormitory of sixteen. Some of the children accept. Rose says that she cannot, that Trina should enjoy her hard-earned treat. Ryan insists that Trina should enjoy her treats by herself, since she paid a high price for them with her mother in the infirmary and her life almost lost for real. But Trina says she will be happy only if she can share her unexpected bounty. She says she did what any one of them would do if ordered to do so by the preacher, and any other course of action would have been insane and accompanied by one of three outcomes: the well, the gauntlet, or a group beating. She divides the chocolate and hands out a few peanuts and offers the potato chips to eager hands. Ryan and Rose see her logic and think her brave and very generous, and with that they help themselves to a part of the chocolate bar, a stick or two of gum, and a wafer. They nibble their treats to make them last. They talk in between chewing for longer than they should as they try to stretch the time the snacks last. They say how they could not breathe and could hardly look and almost passed out in shock as Trina offered the gorilla a banana. How did she do it? How did she manage not to pee herself? Ryan says he was with her all the way, beside her in every move she made. Rose agrees and adds that she was like Trina’s shadow if Trina had a shadow in that tent. Trina smiles and then stops in the middle of the smile and starts to cry. She says she hopes Adam dies in his sleep and ants crawl over him and eat his gorilla body. She says she wishes she were big and could wield a large stick so she could beat the snot out of those guards and make them cry for their mothers. She drops her treats as she says this and pulls at her hair. The others stop nibbling and look alarmed. She begins to say something about the preacher, and Ryan drops his snack and rushes to her and covers her mouth with his hand. He pulls her to him and cuddles her. She shakes in distress.

  —I will get you a real treat, Trina. Promise me you won’t say bad things and get yourself into more trouble, and I will get you some fresh bread hot out of the oven. Promise.

  Ryan looks into Trina’s face, and she stops shuddering and nods, and he smiles at her and she smiles back.

  —You’ll get me bread? I don’t want you to run that risk for me.

  —You have no say in it, Trina. The choice is mine, and I’m going to do it right now.

  —I don’t want you to steal bread for me.

  —It’s not stealing if you’re hungry.

  —What if you get caught?

  —I’m hungry. We’re all hungry, right?

  The children in the dormitory nod at Ryan and ignore Trina. All except Rose.

  —But the guards will hurt you.

  —Only if I get caught, Rose, which I won’t. We all want some bread, right?

  Ryan extracts a promise from each of them that they won’t ever tell anyone. All agree. Trina says she felt strong back in the tent because of them; otherwise she would have wet herself without a doubt. She says her mother told her that as long as they think of one another and behave as if they are together and help one another, they are bound to make it through the nights and days in this jungle.

  Adam submits to the tug of the rope around his neck. Three men grip it. He allows them to drag him back to his cage. He is glad to be left in peace. He feels drowsy and cannot keep his eyelids from drooping. His arms belong to some other creature with poor aim. How else was he unable to grasp a banana held up in front of him? His mind did not belong to him. It still feels that way. He tried to do what the preacher wanted of him and failed. Take a treat offered by a child and a woman. Follow the lead he was strapped to for the safety of everyone. Watch the preacher and do what was asked of him. But in his drowsy state, he could not think. His body is numb and heavy. A weight presses against his muscles and makes movement slow and his aim poor. He wants to be left alone. He needs to sleep. In the morning everything will feel better. A good sleep will recharge his body, sunlight invigorate him. The children at play with their speed and happy noises will surely lift his spirits. Adam surrenders to sleep that stakes its claim on him. He allows sleep to take him wherever it wants. His last thought of the night is of Joyce, Trina, and the preacher, three people he feels he has to obey from this night on no matter what they ask of him. And with that, Adam finds himself bounding through the trees with his legs and arms, able to run along a lane cut through the air, a headlong straight line forged through the jungle. He moves in this effortless way at high speed without colliding with a single object. He overtakes flocks of parrots. Crows swerve from his path. He runs in the air high in the trees and drops to just above the height of the man without slowing. The jungle blurs as he runs, and he does not feel tired or breathless in this sprint without end. At the precipice of a waterfall, all he has to do is run in the direction of the headlong plunge of the water, since its downward trajectory continues this lane for his rocket arms and legs. He wishes never to wake from this sleep, where his cage is no more and nothing and no one impedes his path, his will. Coming up in front of him, only a speck to begin with, he can just about make out a figure, another gorilla, waiting for him as he gallops near. The head and body look familiar, and before he can put a name to the form, he finds himself tumbling through the air into the arms of his mother.

  Trina, Ryan, Rose, and the rest of the children in the dormitory sit up in their beds in the dark and talk about hunger. About the small last meal of the day, said to be shredded beef and rice but in actuality masses of rice and ladles of gravy with nothing in it but colored water. A paltry meal digested hours ago. What they wish for ranges from entire roasted pigs to chocolates with three layers to the box. The smell of the bakery begins to drift into the dormitory. Ryan shifts the talk to cutting a fresh loaf and spreading it with creamy butter. What would it be like to watch that butter run off a slice and catch the runoff in a wide mouth and bite into the not too hot but more than just warm baked dough. Ryan moves to the door. Trina volunteers to go with him. Rose says they should draw straws to be fair to everyone, since all of them stand to benefit.

  At this point the talk swings to what will happen to the bread scout if he or she gets caught. Pictures of the bread evaporate from heads at the mention of discovery. The children know what that means. Rose says how terrible it would be if one of them got caught and all of them were punished. To be lowered one at a time into the well, moist and dark with a spiders’ enclave of webs in sufficient quantity to wrap a child in its shroud. Or be made to run the community gauntlet of fists and slaps and kicks. Or face a public beating by the guards. This makes everyone swear to protect the rest of the dormitory by saying he or she acted alone. All agree that whoever gets caught must take the punishment on behalf of everyone, no matter how terrible. They interlace fingers and cross hearts and hope to die. Trina adds that whosoever succeeds in bringing back bread gets the biggest slice first and the rest will be shared among the other children. Ryan thinks of another thing. He says that if anyone betrays the group, the punishment will be an endless dousing in a well, a perpetual running of a gauntlet formed by the group, and a beating with sticks from the group at every opportunity rather than one measly sentence at the bottom of the well, or one short sprint along the line formed by the c
ommune, or one instance of a beating by a few men armed with sticks.

  Ryan pulls straw from a mattress and breaks it into pieces of varying length and puts the pieces in a hat and holds out the hat for everyone to pick a piece. The children each draw a straw from the hat. Trina and Rose examine theirs. Everyone knows how hard it is to make it along the gangway all the way to the bakery and back without bumping into one of the guards patrolling the walkways and standing in lookout towers with binoculars and rifles, towers dotted around the perimeter of the compound. The bravery required might be too much for a child’s body to contain. But what a loaf to win if that journey in the blackness could be made and the cooling loaf slipped from its tray and returned to the dormitory, hot enough that the booty has to be shifted from arm to arm to stave off the burn. Trina announces that Ryan picked the shortest straw. He does not hesitate. He hugs Trina and Rose. They wish him luck and urge him to be extra careful. Others say much the same thing and pat him on the back. He tiptoes to the door, opens it a few inches with the greatest care, and slips sideways into the dark.