Children of Paradise: A Novel (28 page)

As a young man, he tried to bring women he courted to the graveyard, but all of them except one thought him a little eccentric if not downright creepy. He walks east to west and cuts a leisurely path through the intersecting passages, wanting to emerge into the city street, refreshed in his mind, having succeeded in undoing some Gordian knot of a worry that accompanied him into the graveyard, a worry that he left behind in the unkempt graves.

Tonight he wants to decide on a course of action for Joyce and Trina—and how, if there is a how, he should deal with the violence of the commune guards against his first mate and their threats to him and his livelihood. He feels unafraid for himself, but his young cousin carries a scar for life. And although he feels fine, he knows that Joyce and Trina might really need his help if they are held captive at the commune. Even if his young cousin prevails over the incident and is keen to move on, as well and good as that sounds, there will remain the matter of Joyce’s and Trina’s safety at the commune. He would go back to navigating the river and its tributaries and resuscitate the old pleasures of life on his boat with no one to bother him and only the tides to govern his movement from one day to the next. But the river would be spoiled for him. He would see Joyce and Trina around every twist and turn.

He crossed paths with some powerful and dangerous people, and yet he knows he cannot walk away and pretend to forget about everything. If he persists, he realizes he is guaranteed to meet calamity of some kind from people whose tentacles stretch deep into the politics of the city. At least that is how it is put to him, and he has to believe that is how it would turn out if he ignored the warnings and pursued the matter. Would the preacher try to harm him? Where in the land could he hide to evade the clutches of the commune?

The moon falls on the graves and casts deep shadows that seem more defined than the graves themselves. Shadows crisscross and create the impression of three or four torchlight moons shining on each grave. The captain sees how each step he takes elongates his shadow ahead and to the side of him, and as he turns a lighted corner, his shadow compacts to a dwarf and gathers under his feet as if darting back from tentative exploration to a safe haven. On evenings like this, the capital courts a light and cool breeze that refreshes everything it touches. The dead all around him could not be blamed for going on walkabout; it is too good a night for even the dead to pass up. Do they walk around with him right now? They occupy another dimension and ignore the likes of him. In the distance, the captain makes out what he counts as three or four adult shadows, which retreat from view as he approaches a narrow walk between looming graves. The captain stops and considers turning back and heading for another intersection.

—What’s going on there, boys?

He waits for a reply but none comes. The captain pulls his trusty baton from his belt and picks up a large stone. He walks forward and tries to keep his breathing steady. He quells an impulse to turn on his heels and run. His years of walking at night in the graveyard will not allow him to flee. He thinks this place will be as good as any for trouble to find him.

—I know you’re there, you may as well show yourselves.

He commits himself to the narrow path, just one way back and one way forward, with two walls of old tombs on either side. About halfway along it, four men step in front of him, and he glances back to see two others walking fast to meet him. The captain turns and runs at full speed toward the two men approaching him. The four others who stand blocking his path give chase. A few steps from the two men, he notices that they hold large wooden clubs and he thinks he catches the glint of a knife in one of their hands. The captain calculates that if he can bring down one of his assailants, he might create an opening for his escape. He directs his attention to the man flashing the glimmering blade. He kicks the man in the crotch and whacks the man’s hand with a stick and frees the metal from the man’s grip. The captain and the man tumble to the ground, and with the man under him, the captain swings his stone down into the man’s face. But he feels lashes on his back and kicks to his ribs. He rolls to one side and curls up in an instant to protect his face and ribs. He absorbs a flurry of boots and fists and sticks.

—Captain, you need to listen.

A voice shouts through its exertions delivering an assault on the captain.

—This is your one and only warning.

The voice punctuates its warning with hits to the captain’s body as an arm grips the captain’s neck and chokes him.

—Keep away from the commune.

The captain tries to pry the arm from around his neck, but the other men have him pinned. Though he kicks, he cannot budge the stranglehold. The moon swoops down toward him and brings its bright bulb close to his face, not one moon or two or three, but four or five of those moons run up close and swerve from him at the last possible moment and leave him in darkness.

A call from the office at the capital to the commune reports that the captain has been put in his place for good.

—He won’t be seen on the river again.

The office manager asks that the rest of the conversation with the preacher be conducted in private. The preacher says they are all one family and the office manager should go ahead and say what is on her mind. She recommends strongly that the preacher hears in private what she has to say before he divulges it to the rest of the group, since what she has to tell him will determine how he strategizes with the rest of the commune. The preacher, intrigued by the request for privacy, puts on a pair of earphones and sits in front of a microphone. The office manager says her call concerns the organization formed by relatives of people in the commune. The preacher dismisses the organization as a lot of hot air, a bunch of losers, and a campaign in search of a cause. The office manager informs the preacher that recent activities of the organization have taken on new meaning for the commune. The preacher interrupts and says he will be the judge of whether those miscreants huffing and puffing at his brick house are really to be considered a cause for concern. That he doubts it very much. And so should she, if she has any faith in him. She apologizes and swears that her faith is intact but he should listen to the rest of what she has found out.

She says that letters smuggled out of the commune make various allegations about cruelty and imprisonment of those who express a desire to leave. The preacher wants to know what letters. He demands proof. She says an official affidavit, hand-delivered to the office in the capital, names a dozen children at the commune, Rose among them, whose relatives want them back on the grounds that they are minors. The office manager adds that the California-based pressure group has convinced the state government to launch an inquiry into the affairs of the commune. Despite the commune’s many gifts to various ministries in the capital, a U.S. delegation not only expressed a strong desire to visit to make the determination whether people lived there voluntarily and not against their will, as claimed by the relatives’ pressure group, but the delegation was granted permission to visit the country in an official capacity, with a view to gaining entry to the commune.

The preacher swears. He thinks there must be some mistake. He asks her who in the government ratified the U.S. delegation’s visit. What the office manager says next surprises the preacher.

—Permission came from the very top, Reverend.

—The very top?

—Yes, Reverend, the very top.

The preacher tears off his headphones and slams them to the floor and tips over the microphone. He storms out of the radio room and shouts at his assistants to gather everyone for a meeting. The radio operator collects the headphones and tidies the microphone on the desk. The preacher decides his next sermon will be about this onslaught from hostile outside forces determined to destroy the commune’s way of life.

Dressed in a khaki suit, the preacher asks the congregation to imagine that he is on a safari hunt to capture souls. He asks if they would like to be the prey hunted by the power of the Lord. Everyone cries out to be hunted by Him. He says his other reason for dressing in khaki, as if ready for a hunt, concerns their location. The jungle offers a natural refuge for his community, but there are mercenaries hidden out there in the trees who might attack the commune, and while his soldiers, their brethren, can hold off mercenaries for a while, there is not much hope of success against a hired professional army bent on their destruction.

—But I am a soldier of Christ, and every single one of you here tonight is here because you are willing to be commissioned into my army to serve Christ. Every one of you is willing to serve as prey for Christ and allow yourself to be captured because you want to serve the Lord. True or false?

—True, Reverend.

He asks Joyce, seated with Trina in the front row, what she would do under such circumstances:

—Remember, you’re about to be overrun by mercenaries whose mission is to destroy your refuge and take you back to the bad old ways of your former life and shame you in front of everyone for your willingness to follow in the path of righteousness. They would lock you in prison with common criminals and throw away the key for following Christ. They would take your precious children and institutionalize them in decrepit government detention centers for lost children.

He pushes the microphone under Joyce’s nose, and she says through her sore and cut lips that she would use any weapon she could lay her hands on to defend herself.

—But you cannot defend yourself, Joyce. Not against overwhelming odds. So what would you do?

Joyce thinks about her reply for a moment. If the preacher says there is nothing to do, meaning no earthly course of action, that means there remains only one thing to do. She knows what she must say by the way he stares at her and half-smiles, that same look and expression multiplied on the faces of his assistants and personal bodyguards.

—I would kill myself, Reverend.

—Say that again and louder this time.

—Kill myself, Reverend.

—You hear that, people? To evade certain capture and to stay pure and true to her word, Miss Joyce would deny her enemies the ultimate victory and satisfaction derived from her capture and defeat by killing herself. Joyce, you are a genius.

He kisses her on the forehead and asks her what about the little princess seated beside her.

—What about Trina, Reverend?

—What becomes of her after your inspired escape from the oppressors?

His question startles Joyce. She wonders why ask something if everyone in the room already knows the answer. She realizes she must play her small role in the preacher’s method of roping his audience inexorably into accepting the conclusions of his reasoning. Some important lesson in his head requires her cooperation for it to be instilled among the congregation, of which she is just one expendable piece in a larger puzzle of nearly one thousand pieces.

—Remember, you’ve killed yourself to deny your enemies.

—Yes, Reverend.

—And what becomes of your precious daughter without her mother to protect her? You would leave her to her fate, to a life in the hands of our worst enemies? The very people who are out to imprison us and separate us from our children?

The congregation shouts a unanimous no. Joyce nods in agreement. She feels trapped in a form of reasoning she has heard many times and never succeeded in finding a way around and so could never offer any effective resistance. She knows her participation needs to be unequivocal to convince the preacher of her reinvigorated commitment to him and the commune.

—You see the dilemma, don’t you, Miss Joyce? You do the right thing by evading capture and robbing our enemies of victory when you take your own life, but you leave your most precious girl to her fate at the hands of the wicked.

—No, I wouldn’t leave her. I’d take her with me.

The preacher thrusts the microphone under her nose:

—Say that again, Miss Joyce.

—I would take her with me, Reverend.

—And how would you do that, Miss Joyce?

—I would kill her first and then myself.

—Say that again, you brave woman and devoted mother.

—I would kill her first, then myself.

The congregation erupts into applause and affirmative shouts of yes, yes, yes.

—Look around you, people. Let us be realistic. We’ve a lot of children here. How many? What, three hundred and twenty, fifty, or more? Should I as your leader expect each of you to take it upon yourself to kill your own children? In the heat of being under attack, it takes enough just to think about yourself, never mind your children. What kind of a leader would I be to you if I abandoned you to your enemies? What would you think of me if I left you to your own devices at the very moment when you needed me most? You can say it. I won’t hold it against you. You would be within your rights to curse the hell out of me, damn my name. Wouldn’t you?

The agreement is a little tentative. It does not sit easily with the congregation to condemn their leader to his face even if he invites them to do it. They know he has the memory of an elephant and he summons details about everyone and everything going back years, to the inception of the commune. Sometimes these details make their reappearance verbatim, but with a slight shift of emphasis, that turns a compliment into an insult or an invitation to criticize him into uninvited betrayal.

—As your leader, I’ve made contingency plans. Just as the enemy plans our destruction, so I am planning our escape from their clutches. We view death altogether differently than the outsiders, don’t we? We are fortunate in our faith in the Lord our Savior to know that death is not a final precipice. Aren’t we lucky to have this faith, people? Are we not blessed in the certainty of our faith? We know that death is a transition and not finality. What is it? Repeat.

—Death is a transition, not a finality.

—Death is a transition. Don’t think of it as final. We know that we leave this life to walk through the gates of heaven into everlasting happiness. We know when the enemy rushes out of the forest, we will be ready to make that journey together, won’t we, people?