Children of Paradise: A Novel (25 page)

Joyce asks the captain to join the commune. They could be together more often than these periodic voyages. He says the faith that she has in God is one thing, but her faith in the preacher and the man’s ideas for social living requires more from a convert than a simple leap of faith. Joyce breaks her half-embrace of the captain and takes a step away from him and turns to look at him squarely in the face.

—If you are prepared to believe in Christ just to be with me, how come you can’t take the next, far easier step of taking an oath of loyalty to the leader of my commune? Why is that any more of a demand on you?

She wonders if his variety of love is nothing more than possession of one person by another, of a man wanting to own a woman, rather than the love that expresses a liberating emotion shared by two equal parties. The captain becomes serious. He knows he cannot couch his answer in his usual throwaway and affable manner, as is his custom for conversing on his boat, where his practiced neutrality encourages passengers into further conversation. This time he has to take a position and defend it.

—I see a god of some nature in all the complexity of living things around me, especially in the workings of the rain forest and river, never mind this planet in relation to the sun and everything else in the universe.

Joyce folds her arms and stares at the very river and forest venerated by the captain. Seeing her demeanor, he knows he has to say more.

—I believe—like all the songs on the charts—that love, more than any other force, powers this beautiful universe.

Joyce moves her eyes from the forest to the captain, and her arms drop to her sides.

—But I could never invest blind faith in another man who is flesh and blood like me. In a deity, for sure, but not in a fallible man.

This springs water into Joyce’s eyes, not enough to run down her face but to fill her eyes, and she turns away and blinks rapidly to clear her sight. The captain’s answer leaves her with the certainty that they can never be together, not in this life, because hers is sworn over to the preacher and the commune.

She says she understands his line of reasoning and leaves it at that. But the captain persists.

—What did I say?

—Nothing, you spoke from your heart, and that is all that I want you to do.

—Well, my heart tells me that religion should not get in the way of what we have.

This makes Joyce angry with him.

—As far as I am concerned, my faith is indistinguishable from my life.

He asks her to forgive him because his life up to now has been invested in hard work and honesty as the best way forward and not in a system where religion and one man control everything.

—I went to a church school, but I fail to see what God has to do with the gap between those who own everything and those who serve them. To my mind, subservience to God and to one man can only mean compliance to a bad kind of politics. I could never do that and live with myself.

—In that case, you will have to live without Trina and me.

Joyce storms off to the back of the boat and stays there, and the captain takes the helm from his first mate and stays there until the boat docks at the commune.

Rumor about Joyce and the captain circles the commune, rolls off tongues, and eventually settles within the ear of the preacher. He pulls her from the rotation of people allowed off the compound on commune business. He tells her that she will lose her daughter if she ever leaves the community to rejoin a life of sinning and meaningless pursuit of pleasures of the flesh. He reminds her that she came to him, and when she did, she was spiritually destitute and in dire need of guidance for herself and her child. Perhaps she forgets that despite her college education and ability to get by in the world as a single mother, she came to him seeking more than the material goal of satisfying the needs of the flesh, and she believed that she found what she was looking for in his teachings. He says she is a clever woman and worthy of a man’s love and that she has his love and the love of every man in this community and her child will never be wanting of friendship and company and happiness.

This captain was one man. One destiny. Whereas, he, as her preacher, Father, savior, he was everything to her. No single human being he ever met could equal him, and no one man could offer more to her than the combined love of the community. And no love on this earth could match the love of Christ. Devotion to Him results in the coveted prize of everlasting life.

—Have you lost your faith in Christ?

—No, Reverend.

The preacher decides that the captain might prove useful to the commune. At least for now. His boat carries things that he never asks about, and no one seems to notice his business with the commune. He is reliable and cheap for a boat that size and a captain with that much experience. The guards say he never pries into their affairs, and he is pleasant and always voyages when they need him and waits for them when they are held up, at some cost to him of customers who leave for other boats. If the captain is a good man, then Joyce must be beguiling him. Her beauty must turn his head away from attention to his business. But the guards say that she is hard to like, much less love. Too ready to show she is smart. Too haughty with her intelligence. As if her body were a temple rather than the commune, which safeguards her existence. As if some hand cut her from a different cloth than everyone else.

The preacher asks Joyce about her relationship with the captain, and she admits to a warm friendship that goes no further than talk. He presses her about her feelings, and Joyce admits to liking him very much but says her feelings for the captain are cordial, nothing more. The reverend says she crossed a line by her association with an outsider.

—I’m disappointed with you.

—Sorry, Reverend.

The preacher asks Joyce to say good night to her daughter and to accompany him back to his house. He asks his assistants to stay with him along with three guards. They pass Adam’s cage, and Adam stands holding the bars as he stares at them. The reverend does not even glance in Adam’s direction. The group heads straight for his white house. He walks Joyce through the house to the bare and spacious meeting room and asks Dee to put on a record of Handel’s
Messiah
. He stands opposite Joyce and waits for the music to begin. Once the choral voices start, he asks for it to be louder, and as it blares out, he says to Joyce that her time with the captain cannot go unpunished. He says he believes that he caught the relationship in its early development, and to prevent any irreversible acts on her part, some lesson has to be imparted to her to bring her back into the fold. Her temerity in cultivating such a liaison after her sworn allegiance to him and the community is an outrage.

Joyce tries to say something in her defense, but he holds his index finger over his lips, and when she persists in trying to speak, he grabs her by the hair and holds his hand over her mouth. He tells her she should know better than to ignore an order from him.

—Beat her.

His assistants and the guards surround Joyce and lash her with sticks. She tries to move away, but they follow her and swing at her body. She cries out and buries her head in her arms, tips over, but makes no attempt to thrust out her arms to break her fall. She lands hard on her right side and lies still. Her punishers pause and glance at the preacher and back at Joyce’s unmoving body. The preacher takes a jug of ice water and throws it over her, and the cubes hit Joyce and scatter all around her. She moves in response to the cold shock, and the beating starts again. The preacher shouts at his guards—no more on the head and face. Joyce tries to get to her feet and grab the sticks. All she can muster is a repeat of the word “please,” over and over, as she struggles to catch her breath. She makes it to one knee, and the guards push and kick her back down to the ground.

—Please.

Her eyes search the face of each guard. They pause and look at the reverend to verify if they should indeed stop. Blood runs from Joyce’s nose and mouth, and the preacher throws a towel at her and waves the stick-wielding crew away. Dee, Nora, and Pat idle by the door, unable to watch. The preacher waves them away with an expletive uttered under his breath, and they scurry away and shut the door behind them. He kneels beside Joyce and hugs her. She feels wooden.

—I’m sorry, Father. Sorry.

—Hush. Hush.

He wipes blood from her face. He says that she is too smart to need this crude type of correction, but she forced his hand.

—I have such high hopes for you and Trina.

He wipes her arms and neck.

—I love you and Trina. Why would you want to risk leaving the community and losing Trina along the way?

Joyce cries and says she loves the community and understands the error of her ways, and she will do anything to earn his forgiveness and his trust. Again he tells her to hush. He kisses her cut lip, and she does her best to keep very still for him, but she trembles uncontrollably.

—You’re on probation.

He says she needs to prove her loyalty to him and the community. He wants the devoted woman back. The one who dropped everything and rode a train and bus cross-country from Florida with her child and two suitcases and joined the commune in California. Who heard him preach and afterward walked into his office and handed over her and Trina’s birth certificates and said their lives were his from now on. Who kissed his hand and thanked God for sending His ministry to his body and for guiding her to him in her hour of need. Even before they met, their personal correspondence in those early days convinced him that she was born to serve Jesus, but her recent waywardness throws everything into doubt, and in his opinion, doubt is the enemy of faith. He asks her to consider Trina. Would she want to see her daughter go through something like this? Joyce shakes her head. He touches his forehead to hers and stares into her eyes. Her full and overflowing eyes. His own well up, and he has to wipe them. He dries her face and his. He says if she passes the series of tests devised by him, he will restore her privileges to her as one of the shining lights in the community. She must past these tests to reenter his inner circle of people. Joyce agrees to forget the captain and to do whatever the preacher asks of her to win back his trust.

—It’s just for a couple of days.

—Why can’t I go with you?

—Not this time, Trina. I must go alone this time.

Joyce looks at Trina, and her daughter knows not to argue about it. They collect Rose and walk back to the main compound. Rose hears an adult calling the name of another child. The voice sounds just like her absent mother’s, forcing Rose to cover her ears and take evasive action by telling Trina that she will take care of her while Joyce is away. This jolts Trina out of her gloom and she hugs Rose. The two skip along in front of Joyce, who takes big strides to keep up with them. Joyce showers and packs an overnight bag. She receives her instructions from the preacher in the presence of his assistants, who advise her further after their Father has left.

—It’s best if you don’t talk to him at all.

Joyce agrees that this is the best course to take with the man in question on this particular occasion.

Two guards, assigned to Joyce’s transport crew, take one case each and load them with great care into a wheelbarrow and throw a sheet over it. One guard pushes the wheelbarrow. The other guard carries their rifles, a strap over each shoulder. Joyce walks in front, followed by the guard pushing the wheelbarrow, with the armed guard at the back. They walk in silence along a zigzag path that leads from the compound down to the dock. The dock belongs to the commune, with posted Private Property and Keep Out signs as well as a daytime security guard. On seeing each other for the first time in a long time, Joyce and the captain can only stare into each other’s eyes. The armed guard explains the situation to the captain and his first mate.

—She’s not allowed to talk to you, so please don’t talk to her.

They leave the empty wheelbarrow in the custody of the guard stationed at the landing pier and board the craft for the flight to the capital. The journey takes a day, and the river twists and turns and seems to double back on itself. Most of the time Joyce finds herself intently looking at the passing scenery as her way to avoid catching eyes with the captain. His skin, wrinkled at the corners of his eyes, makes him appear as if he smiled his way through difficult days. Unlike the captain, the first mate tries to get close to Joyce and flash her a smile. Joyce smiles but keeps her eyes fixed on the water or the thick trees on the riverbank. The water changes color from brown to clear to dark metal. The boat chugs past various indigenous tribes fishing at the banks and women washing clothes and children swimming. Men throw fishing nets in perfect circles that plop down on the water and sink out of sight, and the men haul the nets with care and shake out the pieces of dancing silver on the banks. The children chase the bounty, grab at it two-handed, squeal if the fish slip from their grasp, and hurl into buckets what they succeed in keeping. They wave and Joyce waves back, thinking how happy Trina and Rose would be to play out here and whether Ryan might be somewhere among other children. The children run along the path for a short distance to keep up with the boat. The people on the banks recede and the wild succeeds them. Egrets stand one-legged on the banks and in the shallows, apparently admiring their reflections until they dart forward and spear a fish. Caimans sun on the banks and drape half in and half out of the water, their traps slightly ajar to show teeth, as if posing for a camera. Overhanging trees seem to steer the current left and right. Darkness and sunlight appear to be born somewhere in the middle of the river. The only sound at night is the engine of the boat, but in the day it competes with other motorized traffic and with birds and monkeys on the shore.

They pass other vessels and wave, and the captain and his first mate, in their matching khaki outfits, exchange information about the water and a quick fact about someone or something at the port. A punt overloaded with sugarcane passes close to them, and the cane cutters, baked by the sun and covered in cane sap and dirt, greet them and hand over sticks of cane to the guards and other passengers, and the soporific air on the boat switches to animated splendor. People peel the hard outer husk from the cane with their bare teeth; others produce pocketknives. There is much chewing of pulp and spitting of sucked dry husk into the water. Fish flick up from the depths and snap at the husks. A caiman pushes away from its moorings on the bank.