Children of Paradise: A Novel (16 page)

The delegation follows the preacher to the house. He asks Sid if he plays.

—I dabble. That little girl plays.

The assistants offer carbonated drinks or something a little stronger, and with everyone holding a glass and settled on mats on the floor in a big room at the back of the house, the commune leader asks them to state the exact nature of their business concern. The chief spokesman thanks the preacher for his gift and hospitality and says that the ways of the preacher match ancient Indian practices of civility and one of the preacher’s ancestors may have originated from one of the indigenous tribes of the Americas. The preacher thinks this is not true for him but is the lineage of one of his group. He points to Joyce and says she has roots in the Miccosukee tribe of central Florida. The Amerindians look at Joyce and smile and bow. The preacher says he must be channeling his good vibrations through Joyce. Everyone smiles. The chief says the river feeds all life near it and wonders how much the commune relies upon it. The preacher says a boat arrives once a week with supplies from the capital, and the commune draws water from the river for irrigation. The children swim there sometimes, but he is not supposed to know about that. This raises much laughter. The things I don’t know about my people, the chief says, are usually not worth knowing or are things best left to the people. The preacher nods at this wisdom. The chief asks about the pig farming. He wants to know the size of it, how many holdings, and the method of cleaning the sties and disposing of the waste.

—The blood and guts are fine, the piranhas and caimans take care of that, but the chemicals and the shit are another matter.

The preacher calls on his farming manager to answer on his behalf. The farming manager says water is pumped from the river by a generator and the waste sent down drains to the river. The chief shakes his head, though he keeps his pleasant smile. He says this is not acceptable, that he lives downstream and the water is contaminated, smells awful, and makes his people sick. He wonders if pits can be dug and the waste placed there, along the same principle as a community latrine or a rubbish dump. As the chief speaks, he does not seem to notice the response of his host. The smile disappears from the preacher’s face, and his face and neck redden. The chief says he notices the commune owns a bulldozer and a tractor, so the solution of digging pits for the waste is easy for the commune. He adds that the government inspectors will visit the area soon and do not approve of this practice of dumping pig waste into the river. This is all very direct and good, the preacher says, but every activity on the three thousand acres of the commune, every commercial and civil practice, is approved by the government and exceeds governmental standards. The preacher says he will consult with his manager and others about the feasibility of the chief’s suggestion and inform the delegation of his decision in a few days. He thanks the chief for his candor and asks if there is anything else of concern to the delegation. The chief says there is not, and before he can add any word, the preacher stands and abruptly leaves the room. The delegation instantly loses its relaxed posture. They straighten and raise their eyebrows. Some drain their glasses. Others push their glasses away. The chief stands, and the rest of the coterie follows. They march out of the building.

Sid says to the chief:

—That went well.

The chief ignores Sid and says to the commune representatives:

—Thank the preacher for me. We did not mean to offend him. We look forward to hearing his answer in a few days.

The delegation members climb into the jeeps and speed away. At the entrance to the compound, only Sid waves to Kevin and Eric. They wave back, aiming their parting gesture at Sid only.

—I should have filled those jars with pig shit.

The preacher hurls the masks across the room and stamps on the clothing and tears some into shreds and spits on the pieces and tosses a few more until he runs out of breath and is covered in sweat. He inhales deeply at the urging of one assistant while another massages his shoulders. He takes off his sweat-soaked shirt and holds out his arms as an assistant hangs a clean one on his body. He waves off the assistants and radios the capital, and an official puts him through to the president’s office. The preacher demands to know who sent a delegation of the local tribes to his compound to stir trouble. The first secretary to the president says he has no knowledge of any such delegation. The man wants to know if foreign nationals put the Indians up to this mischief. The first secretary says the president is overseas currently, but he will pass the matter to the minister of the interior and that the preacher is not to worry another minute about it. The preacher says he needs to speak with the interior minister right away because he hears from the Indian delegation that a government inspector is scheduled to visit the area. The preacher stays on the radio as the first secretary connects him to the Ministry of the Interior, who in turn connects him to the interior minister’s secretary, who says that the minister is in a meeting and will have to call back.

—Not so.

The preacher shouts into the two-way radio that he is a personal friend and this is an urgent matter and if the secretary values his job, he will interrupt that meeting and get the minister on the line right away. There is an elongated pause of static as the preacher waits and his breathing comes back to normal. He complains aloud that he pays these people good money made by the honest sweat that drips from the brow of the commune, and this is how he is treated. At last the interior minister materializes on the line and apologizes immediately and asks the preacher what the nature of his emergency might be. The preacher explains about the delegation, the rumor of a looming inspector visit, and the commune’s pig-farming practices. The interior minister says the preacher should forget about the inspector.

—Poof, he’s gone.

He promises that there will be no inspection of anything pertaining to the commune. The indigenous delegation, though, will require a little appeasement, since the treaty about the treatment of natural resources directly affects tribes in the area, and that treaty is ratified by the United Nations. The preacher says he does not give a rat’s ass who ratified what. He just wants to know that no one will interfere in the business of the commune. The minister repeats the need for some gesture of appeasement from the commune to the indigenous delegation working on behalf of the local tribes.

—How much?

—Let us not talk about such matters on the air. I will meet with someone at your office here in the capital, and we can come to an amicable arrangement. Satisfied?

—Okay.

And that is the end of the matter as far as the preacher is concerned. He slams the radio receiver onto the table.

—These people think I can pull a golden calf out of my ass.

He paces back and forth and rails against the forces he perceives as direct threats to his dream on earth, his rainbow coalition of the poor and the powerless ennobled and lifted nearer to God by his communal enterprise. His assistants keep out of his way and move valuable or dangerous objects out of his reach. He says if he bulldozed the forest, there would be no delegation. If he gouged deep holes in the landscape to extract minerals, there would be no delegation (though one would be justified). But the second he deposits a little innocent pig shit in the river, whose currents sweep the shit away anyway, all hell breaks loose, delegations from eight tribes put aside their usual squabbles, he says, and they have the gumption to petition him and threaten him with government scrutiny. He will fix their indigenous backsides, he shouts at the furniture. He says they have owned all this land for centuries and done nothing with it. He flings his dark glasses across the room, pounds the table, and looks around for something else that is loose and within reach that he can throw, and seeing nothing, he knocks over a chair and kicks it and curses and limps in a circle and stoops to examine his throbbing big toe.

And he wails for his assistants.

—Nora, Dee, Pat, anybody.

E
veryone gathers early for the evening sermon in part to find a chair but more out of helpless anticipation based on the day’s events with the children. Adults and children move in such an economical and orderly fashion that they force the guards to keep their sticks by their sides and languish next to entrances. Even the sick in the infirmary ask for help to get to the meeting. Miss Taylor, the commune’s makeup artist and seamstress, says she wants to be there if they can wheel her in her bed. The doctor says that is out of the question. The recent rain-softened ground would prove unsuitable for any such attempt. She accepts the doctor’s explanation and tells the nurse to make sure an assistant powders the preacher’s forehead, which has a tendency to shine in the congregation tent’s fluorescent lights. And he should wear something bright for the occasion.

A few sick people enter the tent and a number of people jump up to offer their seats. These instant displays of sacrifice result in many offerings of blessings from the sick, God bless you, brother, sister, child. The air becomes more akin to a carnival atmosphere than the usual tense wait for the unpredictable twists and turns of the preacher’s sermons. People know not to show any levity that is unrelated to a specific instance of spirituality, but they cannot hide or disguise a collective sense of movement with a common purpose. The cooperation is instinctive, the consideration for the children, the elderly, the infirm, exemplary. No one has to ask for anything. They anticipate one another’s every need: a proffered chair, a gentle hand steering an old elbow, a need for someone to scoot over and make a bit more room, all met instantaneously and accepted with abiding grace.

Waiting for the preacher to appear is no less a gracious affair. The talk remains hushed, and the moment the band and choir strike up, every pair of lungs in the tent pitches in. The hymn promises that someday the singers will meet Jesus in heaven. The singers declare this repeatedly. The tambourines, drums, and various flutes make it clear that such a place includes these very instruments; they, too, will be brought up to meet Him. Trina is among the church band, but an assistant pulls her from the group and seats her beside her mother, who sits in a chair at the end of the second row. Trina tucks her flute in the space between chairs, and the two clap along with the congregation and sing. The joy and happiness that the congregation swears is theirs, along with peace, really seems possible at that moment. But not for Trina and Rose, who worry about Ryan, and not for Joyce, who wonders what may be in store tonight for her and her daughter.

More than joy and happiness and peace thrive in the room. The air seems positively ecstatic. Each voice, each instrument, lifts the other up to a place that makes everyone’s spirit soar. Trina looks along her row and encourages Rose with a smile.

The preacher hears the glorification, all in his name, as he prepares for his sermon. He thinks how early it is for the congregation to reach such a crescendo. He calls for Dee, his most trusted assistant. She looks with raised eyebrows at Nora and Pat and lifts her shoulders in acknowledgment of their complicity. They know her name is on the preacher’s lips tonight, but tomorrow it may be either of their names. The man is in the shower. He asks her to soap his back. She knows what that means. She removes her apron and nurse’s hat and rolls up her sleeves. He draws the shower curtain and leaves the water running and causes it to sprinkle the stone floor. He gestures for her to come over to him, but she says she does not want to get her uniform wet.

—Well, what are you waiting for?

—But there isn’t time, Father.

—I make the time around here, come on in.

And with that, she kicks off her shoes.

—Slow, slow, imagine you’re wading into the sea on the Pacific coast.

She moves like a sloth as she steps out of her dress and unhooks her bra and peels off her stockings and, last, her underwear, which she wriggles out of from side to side as the scant fabric moves along her hips and thighs and over her knees to her ankles. Naked, she curtsies. He holds out his hand, and she grasps it daintily as she steps into the shower. He pulls her to him. She flicks the curtain shut to keep the floor from getting soaked.

Adam sits in his cage in the semi-dark. A little light dribbles his way from the tent and a few of the buildings strewn about the compound. He claps, clucks, and sways along with the worshippers in the tent. Though he dearly wants to be in the tent, enjoying the band and the people straining at the top of their lungs, he hopes the preacher will leave him out of the evening’s proceedings. He does not appreciate the way he is put to use. He can do more for the preacher. The last time they roped him and injected him and bribed him with fruit and hauled him to the tent. He hates needles and the indignity of ropes and handlers who clearly fear and despise him. If they turn up again, he will not let them near him. Adam grabs the bars of his cage and shakes them. He leaps up and imagines landing on the heads of the guards who tug him to and fro at the end of a rope. His only friends are the preacher with his treats and his backscratching and the girl with her flute. All the rest are his wishes splintered into a thousand pieces and sent hurtling around the compound. Now they sing the night into being. Their voices pull this dark veil over the trees, vines, flowers, shrubs and stitch everything into one seamless fabric that joins him to them and unites everything so that distance means nothing and nothing can come between them, least of all the bars of his cage.

The preacher, pelt freshened by his shower, tells Dee that he wants his Elvis look: slicked-back hair, dark glasses, a white sequined shirt, and tight white trousers made to measure by the commune’s tailor, with pointy-toed cowboy boots stitched by the commune’s shoemaker. He sneers at the mirror one last time and heads for the front door, Bible in one hand and pistol in the other. Pat, Nora, and Dee and two bodyguards follow him.