Children of Paradise: A Novel (4 page)

Joyce leads her daughter from the cage through a forest of arms tapping them on the head and shoulders and through a sea of smiles and wet faces. Joyce lifts her dress and wipes Trina’s face with the hem.

—Let’s clean you up and get you out of these clothes.

—Can I keep the dress for a special occasion?

For an answer, Joyce looks at one of the assistants, who nods her approval and tells Trina to go to the house and pick up a brand-new flute. They march inside, and Trina admires the walls hung with masks and carvings of oddly shaped figures and paintings of campfire scenes and spies; propped in one corner is a large glass case that resembles a fish tank, divided into four compartments housing two tarantulas and two scorpions. Trina walks her fingers and thumb along the glass, over one of the labels,
Guyana Pinktoe
, written in neat cursive, and a tarantula creeps toward her hand before she hurriedly withdraws. She taps on the glass of the Gormar scorpion, and it scuttles to meet her hand, and she withdraws again. She hesitates and reminds herself that even scorpions cannot sting through glass, then reaches forward and presses against the place where the scorpion rests. The guard warns her not to tap or touch if she wants to remain in the reverend’s good books. An assistant appears and hands Trina a wooden flute. Joyce nudges her.

—What do you say?

—Thank you very much.

Trina turns the flute over in her hands and hugs it. She wants to try out a few notes, but she thinks better of it because her lips are covered in dark lipstick. Her mother leads her out of the house and Trina hangs on to the flute with one hand and her mother’s hand with the other. They head from the main house to the infirmary with the nurse and the doctor, who says he wants to make sure the child is all right.

Very few people remain in the wide clearing between the preacher’s house and Adam’s cage. Most have dissolved into the surrounding buildings, back to the kitchen and food hall, the bakery, the schoolhouse, the laundry building, the separate dormitories for adults and children, and the mill with its adjoining incinerator and chimney stack, or else farther out to the fields and outlying pig farm. The preacher retreats from the cage, dips his hands into a basket, and returns to the side of the cage with his hands full of fruit and bread. An assistant carries a bucket of water. Father unlocks the cage. Adam thinks fleetingly that he should dash for the exit and keep running until he is far from this place of sticks and whip and back with his mother among the trees, vines, and chatter of birds, in her embrace before she was knocked to the ground by a nail hole he tested with his finger hoping to wake her moments before a net pinned him down and he was dragged away from her. But his Father cares for him in a way that makes him want to stay in his cage and hope for more gifts of fruit and back scratches, maybe even for his master to return the life robbed from his mother’s body. As his master steps into the cage, Adam holds out his hands and lowers his head to make it clear that all he wants are the treats and nothing else. Nothing bad will happen, no grabbing, no sudden movement, not even a growl. And it works. The preacher hands treats to Adam and pours a bucket into his drinking bowl, and all seems to return to the harmony of before, except Adam remains confined to his cage. No mother for him but Father. Many people visit his cage, and he turns his back, and a friendly hand that is not his master’s scratches him.

The children exercise the utmost care in the vicinity of Adam’s cage. They still stone him if an adult is not nearby to catch them. Not Trina. She walks close by if her mother is not looking, almost within an arm’s length. She asks Ryan and Rose not to pelt Adam. Ryan wants to know why her change of heart. Trina says being locked in a cage is bad enough for the beast. When she looks at Adam, she says she feels lucky to be alive. Adam could have crushed her after she fainted in his arms and the men continued to lash him. But he did not.

—He killed you.

—No, Rose. All Adam did was squeeze me a bit too hard.

—Ryan wants to know if Father really did that to you, Trina.

—Yes. We must never speak about it. I am a ghost.

Trina holds up her arms and shakes her hands:

—Boo!

Ryan and Rose recoil from her and laugh, hands over mouths to stifle the sound, eyes roving left and right for any prefect or adult sure to object to such levity.

Adam likes to watch the children at work or running and screaming with delight. Their missiles puzzle him. He never meant to hurt the girl. He feels sorry that he grabbed her and held her too tight and she ended up in a box on display in front of his cage, lying as still as his mother when she fell with a finger-sized hole in her head.

T
he preacher hands Joyce an envelope containing a list of names of government officials with sums beside their names.

—Go to the capital and disperse these funds for me.

—Yes, Father.

—Come straight back. I need Trina and you here.

—Of course, Father.

Joyce and Trina almost break into a run to get to the landing pier, restrained only by the presence of the two guards assigned to accompany them. They see the captain again for the first time in weeks. He is glad, though he, too, keeps his enthusiasm from erupting in front of the guards. Nevertheless, they hug quickly. Each has to wrench away arms that do not wish to let go. Each pulls back from resting a head on a familiar shoulder for too long. The first mate joins in as well. The captain and the first mate shake hands with the guards, Eric and Kevin, who take turns announcing to Joyce within earshot of Captain and First Mate that relations should be seen as more formal between the commune and outsiders, no matter how friendly the outsiders. Joyce apologizes.

The first mate unmoors the boat and throws the two rope anchors on board and hops back from the wharf onto the
Coffee
. The captain sweeps the vessel around and the river pulls at the craft and the engine goes up an octave as they embark. Parts of the river’s surface capture the faint blue that pushes through thin cloud cover. Parakeets swoop their rainbow banners left and right, moving fast in orchestration and with what might be construed as raucous group laughter.

The captain and Joyce separately ponder the idea of more formality between them. Trina takes out her sketchpad and pencils and sits, looking all around at the shifting scene of the riverbank, the tumble of the water and the slide of sky, two skies to be accurate, and this starts her pencil scribbling, one sky above and another reflected on the river’s glass.

Kevin and Eric look at their charges every now and again but mostly they chat with each other as they play cards for secret stashes of commune-proscribed loot. They confine their exclamations to outward apparel in lieu of mild cursing since none is allowed by the community.

—Jacket!

—Oh, skirt.

First Mate Anthony demonstrates the latest disco moves to a bunch of eager young passengers, moves that he claims rule the clubs in L.A. and New York. He gets the passengers to begin a slow clap while he gyrates and thrusts out his arms and spins on the spot, and without knowing what unfolds there, a viewer might mistake the first mate for an epileptic in the throes of a seizure, being egged on by a set of cruel witnesses.

Joyce launches into an attempt to convince Kevin and Eric of a cool impartiality toward the captain. She winks at the captain before she draws him into a typical debate between a commune devotee and an outside skeptic.

—But Captain Aubrey, all this sensory stuff to do with the boat ride is an illusion.

—What you call an illusion, all this, is all there is, Miss Joyce.

—Paradise is all this and more, everlasting life, but you settle for material well-being, which is transitory, and sacrifice spiritual wealth.

—Food, clothing, and shelter come before pursuit of an afterlife.

—The only true calling is a study of the ways and means to get closer to God.

—I run my boat and mind my own business and live my good life as best as I can.

—Your so-called good life is nothing without a belief in paradise, why settle for less?

—This life is rich and more than enough for me.

—The reverend teaches us that the material pursuit is such a powerful illusion that those who believe in it cannot see beyond what is in front of their eyes.

—I have my charts and a compass, and I know where I am going.

—But you don’t have love in your life, you don’t have God, and you think that the life you see all around you is all the life that there is, and you are wrong.

—No more wrong than those who believe in what they cannot see as the only thing to aim for in the blind belief that they will wake up and find it waiting for them. Meanwhile, they neglect the precious world around them or treat their flesh with disdain.

—What’s flesh when compared with the spirit? Nothing. Spirit is everything.

Both Eric and Kevin cast satisfied glances at Joyce and give the captain a triumphant stare that tells him he has met his intellectual match. They are pleased to have Joyce on their side.

—The captain’s on the ropes, nah, the canvas, and he doesn’t have the grace to surrender.

—Joyce’s our smartest emissary.

—After the reverend.

—Goes without saying.

The
Coffee
cuts a path through the river, and the wake fans out behind the boat and holds out the promise of permanence, but only for a while, only as long as it takes the current to obliterate that wake and restore the river’s mirror as if the boat never cut through there.

Two guards meet Joyce’s party at the city port. One acts as a driver, the other bears a rifle for their protection. They pack into a seven-seat jeep. The streets of the capital—lit somewhat selectively, since the national grid functions at an historical low—present a tableau of shadows interspersed with islands of luminosity. Most of the big houses operate generators, and the engines make parts of the city sound like an all-night Formula 1 race. The reality is different, few cars and even fewer people on foot. Army jeeps patrol with searchlights that they direct down dark alleys and at pedestrians who shield their faces and answer questions about their destinations and sometimes are searched at gunpoint and relieved of a sizable portion of any currency found on them, which the locals refer to as being taxed, since there is an official dimension to this heist, as distinct from being choked and robbed or mugged by a gang or kidnapped for ransom.

Fights break out between territorial dogs, thin mangy strays as fierce as bulls. The barks and yelps, though sporadic, are as distinct as gunfire in a shoot-out. On a couple of occasions an army jeep challenges the commune jeep before quickly waving them on their way, sometimes even with an apology. The unwritten practice is never to impose an impromptu tax on commune people, because they operate a system of bribes as efficient as any corporate payroll.

The headlights pick up men walking in the dark. The men wear their shirts rolled up to expose their midriffs. They shield their eyes from the glare and wave at the jeep for it to stop and give them a ride. The jeep passes garishly dressed women brushed fleetingly by the foraging headlamps and erased by the pursuing dark. Parts of the women’s bodies appear for a moment to be plucked from anonymity by the sweep of the headlights and thrown back into it, as the headlights move on: a bare thigh or near-exposed breast, a red-lipped smile, a wink. They are watched over by men’s shadows lingering near cars with open doors and loud music.

The jeep pulls up in front of a large building with a wooden sign stating that it is the headquarters of the People’s Commune. Trina sleeps, exhausted. Joyce carries her while Kevin and Eric diligently open and close various doors for Joyce’s smooth conveyance from jeep and street to front door to parlor, into corridor, and upstairs to a guest bedroom. Joyce deposits Trina in bed with a kiss, freshens up with a quick shower and change of clothes, and heads back downstairs for the business of the commune with the names on her list, business that lasts late into the night.

She looks over the bookkeeping for the commune office building with the secretary stationed there and says she cannot ratify the accounts due to several irregularities. She runs her finger on a countertop and shakes off the dust and looks at the secretary for an explanation.

—We had to fire the cleaner. She stole from us.

—Well, hire someone else. This place represents us. First impressions are lasting ones.

—Yes, Miss Joyce.

Cars with ministerial or other official government plates, some with army and police escorts, including the interior minister’s, pull up outside the headquarters in a steady stream. Joyce greets the officials while surrounded by Kevin, Eric, and other commune guards and leads them to a back room where envelopes swap hands and instructions pass from mouth to ears and understandings are understood and little pleasantries lead to warm partings and more greetings for more of the same and the same old same old.

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: