Children of Paradise: A Novel (6 page)

The preacher emerges again from his house earlier that evening and visits Adam, who nods and smiles along with the man’s nods and smiles. Father lingers and Adam offers his back. The preacher scratches it. Adam’s eyes relax. After the preacher scratches Adam’s back, he turns and offers his back to Adam. Surprised, Adam takes a step away from the bars of the cage. His eyes shift in rapid thought. But the preacher waits, and Adam steps close to the bars and scratches the man’s back the same way the man scratches Adam’s, with both hands at the same time. Adam tears Father’s white shirt, and red spots blossom on the preacher’s back, and he moves away quickly. The commune leader steps out of reach of Adam’s arms, smiling. Adam returns a mirror image of that smile as if his face looked exactly like Father’s face. The preacher yawns and stretches and heads back to his house. Adam yawns loudly, stretches, and lumbers to the bed at the back of his cage.

The preacher and all the people, children included, move and make noises that Adam feels mimic his movements and sounds. He thinks his body splinters into a thousand pieces to occupy a large clearing in the forest. He watches the entire commune’s comings and goings and feels parts of him leave the confines of his cage and roam the compound at will. Looking at the people going about their business leaves him feeling he is all of them rolled into one. This feeling, that his body mirrors a thousand fragments made of people, intensifies when he peers at the sky and follows the splayed wings of solo birds, or latches on to a flock, as the whole assembly swirls in the breeze. Adam believes his body belongs to their bodies. They are all the parts of him.

A
dam’s bones ache. His skin tingles with a small current rising to the surface. Storm clouds gather and block the sun. Darkness drops without a parachute. A crack of lightning and drumroll of thunder stop the adults at their chores and the children in the middle of school. Commune members working in the open, trimming bushes, uprooting weeds, tending to farm animals, securing barbed wire fences, all dart for shelter. A few large drops bang on the tin roofs. Fat drops, wide apart and able to kick up dust and slap it down again. The drops stitch together and wall up space. They multiply and become a barrage of stones on the galvanized zinc. The pigs squeal and the dogs bark. Adam hoots and stands back from the front of his cage. The guards shout to the heavens to be quiet before they wake Father, but more lightning flashes and a tree tumbles to the forest floor. The thunder persists, rolling across the compound in a stampede on the ground and in the air, above the heads of the guards. Some guards grab their rifles, aim at the sky, and make firing noises with their mouths. Children scream with each rip of thunder. A guard accidentally pulls the trigger on his rifle, and it barely registers above the storm. Adam jumps into the air and shrieks and curls up in a tight bundle with his arms around his head to hide his face and cover his ears. The sound of the rain lashing at vegetation and earth reminds him of his back getting beaten by sticks and the butts of rifles.

Though the thunder rolls away into the distance, still the dark clouds deluge the compound. Usually, Adam likes to stick his hand through his bars and collect the ropes of rain as they lash his arm. But the lightning and thunder have made him shiver. Rain beats on everything. Adam listens to the drums, and finally begins to relax and unfold. Soon he dozes. People expect the preacher’s door to open at any moment and for him to add his bellow of disapproval to the general upheaval. But his door remains closed. His personal nurse and assistant, Pat, tiptoes into the living room and finds him fast asleep, curled on his side with his hand over his ear. She picks up the cover he kicked off and drapes it over him, and he does not even stir. She leans in to make sure he is breathing, and she smiles. She opens the front door with less care this time and reports to the guards in a normal speaking voice that the preacher is fine and asleep, and in his present condition he can sleep through an air raid. She sits with them on the front porch and watches the rain lash the life out of things and choke gutters and pour down walls and well up in drains and spread outward and create instant rivulets that snake in every direction. As the thunder echoes in the distance and the rain continues to spread sheet after sheet, the children run out into the open and turn their heads to the sky and spread their arms and drink the rain, bolting left and right to catch as much as possible. The guards hold up their arms in protest, but the children prove too many for the guards to corral. A few of the children obey and turn for indoors but just as soon run back outside again and sprint from the guards and rejoin the large group dashing around and screeching. The downpour washes the children, the leaves, grass, and vines. All appear sprightly, polished, and renewed.

—Mom, can I go out?

—No, Trina.

The air smells fresh and lighter to breathe. The rain switches off, and the children move from running in the rain to playing in the instant mud pools. They run through the wet and mud and stop looking for a prefect, guard, or adult to shout at them. They dive into the freshly filled pond. Trina stares, wide-eyed, from a window as Ryan and Rose and many more of the children gather in the pond. Trina makes a move for the door but sees her mother shaking her head disapprovingly.

—Mom, can I go out? Please.

—No, Trina.

—But all the other children are out there having fun.

—Use your head, child.

Her mother taps her skull as she speaks:

—That kind of fun will only bring them trouble.

—I never get to have any fun. I’m the only one left out of everything.

—Trina, that’s nonsense, and you know it.

—But it’s true. Why can’t I go out and play with the other children?

—You know why? You know how things can take a bad turn in this place.

—Just this once, Mom, please.

Trina runs to her mother and hugs her. Joyce keeps her arms by her sides.

—Please, Mom.

Trina stares into her mother’s face. Joyce keeps shaking her head.

—Please, Mom. Please.

—I said no. Practice your flute.

Trina’s big black eyes fill with water, and rather than loosen her embrace, the child holds on even tighter. Joyce feels her conviction dissolve.

—Please, Mom. I can practice later.

Trina tightens her hug even more. Joyce finds her arms leaving her sides, seemingly powered by their own need to return Trina’s affection. All the sensible arguments for keeping Trina safe under her watchful eyes turn to powder and dissolve as she embraces her daughter.

—Okay. But I thought you were hungry.

—I am hungry, and I want to play. I’ll practice my flute later.

Trina kisses Joyce, who smiles and kisses her back.

—Promise.

—I promise.

—And remember, not a word to anyone about Father’s business.

—I won’t. Thanks, Mom.

Trina dashes from her mother’s arms. She sprints into the muddy fray. Joyce walks over to the window. She tries to keep track of Trina, but her child quickly disappears into the thick of other children all covered in mud and not distinguishable by name or face except in varying degrees of height and whether the mud-slicked creature wears a dress or a pair of shorts.

Adam opens his eyes and shuffles up to the bars of his cage and presses his body against it for the best view of the children. Maybe another child will trip into his cage. The children splash in the mud and pelt each other with clumps. Ryan and Rose greet Trina. They hug briefly and hop on the spot, beside themselves at the prospect of all this fun.

—What kept you? Ryan knows but asks Trina anyway.

—You know my mother. Everything’s too dangerous until it isn’t.

Her answer makes Rose and Ryan laugh. A few others gather around. Trina, since her resurrection, is the most popular child at the compound. The children spontaneously grab her. They lift her off the ground. They swing her and count one, two, three, and fling her into the water. Her limbs fly as she splashes down untidily. She springs to her feet with a broad smile and triumphant waves of her arms, which produce raucous laughter all around. Adam somersaults in appreciation and rattles his bars and leaps about as if he, too, frolics amid the throng and has several hands swinging him into the pond. Trina stands up and falls back into the pond. She stands in the muddy water and looks at Adam, who somersaults and claps. She keeps her arms by her sides and her back and legs straight as she falls backward, shouting:

—Timber!

Again, Adam somersaults, claps, and hoots. A third time and a fourth, and each time the same appreciative gymnastics and applause and gutturals from Adam. More children join Trina in the pond. Ryan organizes the children in lines and gets them to count to three, and a forest of young trees fall into the water and Adam somersaults, claps, and guffaws.

But prefects must be perfect, and guards designated to guard something or other feel compelled to do their duty. Each watches the next and waits for one of them to do something, to take it upon himself to file a report with the preacher, who is nowhere in sight, and become the one who benefits, perhaps with a promotion from speaking up, while the rest would face questions and criticisms for allowing such a demonstration to take place. The young man recently promoted from a prefect to a guard, who enjoys punishing the children at every opportunity, says he has a job to do and he will do it rather than try to second-guess their leader or anyone else. He grabs his stick and runs to meet the children. The other guards, adults, and prefects follow him and pour out of doorways and from under awnings with their sticks raised. The prefects and guards lash the children on their arms and legs and make them hop and skip and cry and beg.

A child screams with joy and a child screams in pain, and the difference is in the timbre of that scream. Decibels of joy strike the inner ear differently from those of pain. The children’s cries wake the preacher from a deep sleep. Tuned to the distress calls of children, he wakes with a start, not as a man in charge of multitudes in a commune of his own making but as a child in the Midwest, left in a tornado shelter while his father retrieves something from the house, and covering his ears and crying for his father as the ground over his head thunders. The preacher wakes and shakes off the image and staggers to the front door, his limbs not quite his. He fumbles for the handle and throws the door open. The newly washed sun blinds him with its tentacles burning through remnants of cloud, turning the puddles to mirrors aimed at the preacher’s face. He barely makes out the figures of children flailing their arms and hopping to avoid the lashes of adults and older peers, but the cries sail unimpeded into his ears, and to stop it all, he bellows at them:

—Cease and desist!

He shocks the guards and prefects to a standstill. Pat, his nurse, jumps to attention. He repeats the three words over and over. Everyone freezes, and some of the prefects drop their sticks. The children dive into the buildings to hide from the preacher’s voice. Many cover their ears.

—Cease and desist!

He keeps shouting. Anyone in the commune not able to see the preacher must hear him. All of those able to see him standing in the doorway of his house must wonder what they should do next to show him they have heard and obeyed. They have ceased and desisted. A few voices say:

—Yes, Father.

This spreads among them and a chorus grows:

—Yes, Father.

He covers his face with his hands and appears to cough repeatedly into them. His entire body shakes but he does not make a sound. He stamps his right foot then his left then his right then his left, not quite marching on the spot more like trying to drive some stubborn thing into the ground. Every adult in the place chants.

—Yes, Father.

Many cry openly. Others fall to their knees and sob and keep repeating:

—Yes, Father.

Every adult in the place chants it, and many cry openly for the upset they have caused in their Savior. The doctor and nurse and several assistants run to him. Pat grabs one of the preacher’s elbows, the doctor the other, and they steer the preacher back into the front door. The doctor places a firm hand in the small of the preacher’s back, and Pat calms him in her most soothing voice:

—Yes, they will do as you say, Father, they will do exactly as you ask, you can relax now, let me make you a nice cool drink. You sit and put your feet up and relax, they will do as you say, you do not need to worry about them.

Her words and her touch combined with the doctor’s prove sufficient to fade from the preacher’s mind that image of the child all alone in an underground shelter and the roar of a twister overhead from which his father never returns.

—Tell them they must not beat all the children at the same time. Tell them the children sound like a tornado when all of them cry together. They must not beat all of the children like that. They’ll destroy this place. This place is too small, too fragile, to contain so many children screaming at once. Tell them.

He pushes away Pat and the doctor.

—All right, we will, Reverend.

Pat nods emphatically and backs away from him along with the doctor. They leave him sitting with his head in his arms. The nurse mixes him a cocktail of sweet iced tea with a few drops added of what the doctor calls a picker-upper. The doctor tells her to make sure the preacher drinks all of it right away, and she must see to it that no one bothers him. The other assistants and guards agree.

They leave the nurse in the house, promising to return soon, and scatter to the four corners of the compound with the message from the preacher that the children must never again be punished as a group, that the life of the commune depends upon it, meaning the sanity of the man and therefore their sanity, their lives. Some adults look disapprovingly at the children and blame them for this new surge of ill will in the commune. Others think the children are a blessing to the place, and as the future of the place, they are worthy of better treatment. Since it is the word of Father, it must be obeyed if they are to thrive as a community. They must love the children but not spoil them; punish them justly but not in a blanket fashion; see to it that the children do not cry as one body, since their collective distress holds a peculiar sway over Father.