Children of Paradise: A Novel

by Fred D'Aguiar

  He glances back at Adam and adjusts his stick a little to keep it directed at the gorilla. The young guard with his hands held up in front of him appears soldered to the bars.

  —Is it for one man to grant to another? Is mercy to forget? The Good Book tells us that the Lord is full of mercy and that His mercy lasts forever. Think of endless mercy at our disposal, brothers and sisters, endless mercy to match our insatiable appetites in this short span of a life. And yet all we have to do is bide our time to gain automatic entry into everlasting life. You see this stick in my hand. Is it merciful of me to point it from Adam to the overzealous young man locked in there and send the menace to him? Or should I point the stick from Adam and send him away from the poor youth begging me for mercy? How powerful is a man’s mercy? I mean, how long can I keep this stick aimed at Adam and succeed in keeping his attention away from that poor fellow?

  The preacher’s voice, loud, strident, works its logic in the minds of the assembled. They watch him and wait to see what his voice will cause to happen next. His words take the place of the very air they breathe. His words are their reason for breathing. He promised them something that they dearly want to be true, that highest of ideals read about only in the Bible, and they can barely believe they are worthy to attain it based on the daily struggle of their humble lives. They have no choice but to see for themselves what will happen next in the cage, to find out the young guard’s fate, but they want to hear what their leader wishes them to learn from it even more. Equally, the preacher’s ability to hold the gorilla’s attention becomes more important to the spectators than the fate of the young guard. The power of the preacher’s command over the beast intrigues them more than the threat of imminent violence against one of their own, in part due to their desire for further proof of their leader’s supreme ability to control events, from the smallest pleasures and luxuries of daily life to the ultimate promise of salvation.

  The mercy that the preacher talks about, and the commune’s sole focus, is his magic hold over the gorilla. His voice seems to control the beast in the same way that his voice controls them, making the women chaperone their children’s behavior with inducements and punishments, and the men fire their weapons at birds and animals and daily chop and clear the trees. A pool of sunlight for each felled tree, a hole in the sky for cloud to fill.

  The preacher turns his stick from Adam and directs it at the guard. The crowd inhales audibly, some of them scream, and Adam, in a leaping and bounding action that closes the gap between the two in an instant, charges at the guard. The young man ducks and covers his head and screams:

  —Father!

  Adam slams into him and bats him to the side, and he tumbles across the cage and stops in an untidy bundle. The guard tries to lift his head. He mumbles:

  —Mother.

  Adam rushes at the bundle and sweeps it up and throws it against the bars of the cage. The collision echoes around the compound. The young guard’s mother screams and faints. A few guards raise their guns and aim at Adam. The preacher looks at the raised rifles.

  —You’ll have to shoot me before you shoot that beast.

  They lower their guns and apologize. The gorilla lunges at the bundle again, and this time Trina shouts:

  —Adam, stop! Stop!

  Adam stops in front of the crumpled body of the young guard and looks at Trina and at the preacher and back at Trina. The preacher quickly repeats Trina’s order:

  —Adam, stop.

  He points his stick to the back of the cage and Adam retreats to it and the guards unlock and rush into the cage and retrieve the unconscious young man. The doctor and nurses run back to the infirmary with the guards bearing the injured youth. The assistants lock the cage, and the rest of the commune, many of whom are crying, stand and stare at their leader and at Trina.

  —Here is mercy, ladies and gentlemen, boy and girls.

  The preacher feeds his hands into Trina’s armpits and lifts her off her feet. Trina worries if the young man will be okay and if the preacher can smell her.

  —Mercy walks among us in the form of this young lady.

  He puts her down and begins to clap, and the congregation joins in the applause for Trina.

  —Now return to your duties, and I shall see you all at tonight’s service.

  Slowly, the people disperse. They search around them as if they lost some personal item. They do not speak to each other, neither in the preacher’s presence nor near his inner circle. The prefects and guards hurry them along.

  The preacher calls to Joyce to come over and join him. He asks his assistants to write down everything he is about to say, since this is an edict from him to the community as a whole. He says the Holy Spirit moves in Trina. And Joyce is to devote her time to the care of her daughter.

  Henceforth both are excused from the usual rotation of chores. They are permitted to work on the commune wherever they please, but they must not under any circumstances contact outsiders. The preacher looks knowingly at Joyce as he says the part about contact with outsiders. She lowers her gaze to the floor. He reaches out and lifts her chin.

  —Do we understand each other?

  —Yes, Reverend.

  He nods and gives Joyce’s chin a friendly push to one side before he drops his hand and adds that she should dress Trina in formal clothes for the evening service and they should sit at the front of the congregation and after the service they must join him at his house for a bite to eat. He pats Trina on the head and says he will make her a star. He smiles at Joyce. One of his assistants produces an orange and a banana, and the preacher takes the fruit and moves to the bars of the cage and entices Adam to come to him and take the fruit. Adam bounds forward, grabs the fruit, and leaps back to the farthest corner of the cage. The preacher says Adam needs music to calm him. Trina produces her flute and practices next to the cage. The reverend ruffles Trina’s hair, winks at Joyce, and strides toward his house with his entourage of three assistants and two personal bodyguards. Trina thinks of Ryan somewhere in the forest and the image of him lost among the trees guides her fingers and her breath. Adam sits, his fruit in his hands, and listens without moving a muscle.

  The talk throughout the commune never questions the preacher’s motives. Most of the adults focus instead on the wayward nature of the young, their inability to follow simple instructions. What was so hard about following their savior in exchange for everlasting life? Why steal? And where is that boy now? Why couldn’t he swallow his punishment and study his Bible? Why run away? And that young guard. He is lucky to be alive. Lucky he has to contend only with broken bones. Look what he put his mother through. Why disobey a direct command from Father and beat a child? The guard had no right to threaten the child, in particular that child. She was born twice. They conclude that the cage lesson is a hard one but necessary. Their leader remains the only supreme authority in the commune. He guides them along a lane they cannot see. He described it to them, saying that the lane will take them to paradise. All they have to do is believe him, follow him.

  The children marvel at the flight of the guard around the cage. What a gorilla. And the smash of the young man’s bones against the bars set their teeth on edge, worse than scraping long nails along a classroom blackboard. They say the preacher waved a magic wand that hypnotized the beast. What a man. Man over beast. And the girl, Trina, newly turned young woman, what brazenness. She really must be as special as the preacher says.

  The old makeup lady looks ashen, her body, rigid. Her friends double as morticians for the day and spoil her with a sponge bath. They stand on either side of her bed in a room dedicated to last offices administered to the dead. They dip washcloths in rosewater and wipe her face and neck and arms. They wash and comb her hair and rid it of knots and tangles and fix a bun in the back the way she liked it. Her friends hum as they work. Each holds the tune of the same hymn at a different pace. “Abide with Me.” On occasion they coincide for a stretch of several seconds and sound like the same hymn befor
e they break apart again. They clean and file her nails. No polish, she hated polish. They pluck a few stray hairs from her chin and add makeup, more than she would countenance, but they make her look ready for an important journey, in her best lace dress that she made for herself, stitched by hand without the need to take her measurements or without taking one look at herself in a mirror, seeing her dimensions in her mind and working by touch with lace, needle, and thread from the inside out, the dress she saved for special events such as important visitors or christenings, and for this day, her feet fit into the commune’s best leather shoes, repaired by the commune’s shoemaker, with a little bit of a heel that she would not be able to walk in at her age. But hers will be a journey of flight.

  The carpenters make the coffin from local greenheart wood. No paint or varnish. A bright wood that, if someone did not know an old lady near ninety lay in it, would fool him into thinking that it conveyed someone young. But her youthful spirit justifies that brash wood. And for all her years devoted to the careful decoration of others, she appears now to be truly accommodated. They carry her to the congregation hall and place her coffin at the front on the makeshift stage and cover it with a green cloth and place three items on top of the coffin lid, a vase of wildflowers, a Bible, and a makeup compact from her trade. They leave the commune’s most recent death ready for the evening sermon.

  Two assistants collect Trina and Joyce and take them to a quiet room in the preacher’s house. Trina has not been in the house in months. She stares at the indigenous Indian carvings of masks on the wall, and wood panels with paintings of hunting scenes and dancing around fires, and sculptures that resemble abstract human figures in the middle of various human actions, from dancing to chopping wood to hunting, all carved from wood. They sit around a table where the head teacher tutors Trina for the evening sermon. They enlist Joyce’s help, and an accelerated lesson in public speaking ensues. Trina listens and repeats everything that they ask her to do and say, from the gestures with her arms, to the pauses between words, to the words themselves, all in the correct order and from memory. They reward her with soft drinks and chocolate biscuits. The public speaking lesson takes the rest of the afternoon and leaves Trina with just enough time to eat and dress for the evening service, where the head teacher says Trina will be reborn a star. Trina and Joyce walk to the dining hall.

  —That would make it three times.

  —What?

  —That I’m born.

  —What’re you saying?

  —Once from you. A second time by Father’s miracle. And now this star thing tonight.

  —Don’t let it get to your head, young woman.

  At the infirmary, the guard ends up in a complete body cast for twenty broken bones, and the nurses feed him through straws to bypass his wired broken jaws and several missing teeth. A broken nose and two black eyes shine on his swollen face. Both arms and legs are in casts, and the cast on his body starts at the top of his chest and ends at his pubic bone. The nurses rub the young man’s neck, shoulders, hands, and feet to help with circulation. They tell him he should save his tears. He is young. He will heal fast. He must concentrate on finding myriad ways to show his love of his leader and regain his leader’s trust. They tell him the medicine may be bitter, but the cure is Father’s forgiveness.

  The preacher visits the young man. He strides right up to the bed as if he intends to attack any place left on the young man’s body not covered by a cast. The young man tenses his bruised face; his eyes narrow and his toes spread and his fingers curl into a fist. The preacher takes the hand of the youth and clasps it in his own and asks the young man for forgiveness. The two cry and pray together. The preacher thanks the young guard for his diligence on behalf of everyone in the commune, and before the guard can ask for his forgiveness, the preacher says he should focus on healing his body and spirit, that the whole community will be reassured to see him back on duty. The guard swears undying loyalty to the preacher and promises a speedy recovery. He asks for extra Bible study, and the preacher instructs the nurse to add Bible readings to the young man’s nursing care chart.

  The preacher orders his assistants, personal guards, the doctor, and other senior figures to gather around. He says with the recent public beating and with the death of the old makeup woman, there is altogether too much misery around. He asks them for suggestions to cheer the place. They need something to put in front of the commune and grab its attention, something that might act as a counterweight to the old woman’s body and push aside the incident with the young guard. The head teacher posits a spelling competition with a prize for the best child and the best adult. The preacher says that would take too long to prepare. The head of security floats the idea of a shooting competition with the best shot winning a prize to be decided by the preacher. This makes the preacher smile, since he knows he is looking at the best shot in the community. Next. The nurse says a day of races with high jump, long jump, discus, and steeplechase, plus bag races and spoon-and-egg races and three-legged races and other fun things to promote community health and well-being. Not bad. The preacher rubs his chin and nods at the nurse as he gives her suggestion deep consideration. He thinks the games idea is too large-scale, requires too many people, and needs a lot of organization to make it work.

  —Isn’t there something small and miraculous that we can do?

  The doctor says they could have a birth. There is a pregnant woman on bed-rest in the infirmary. The preacher likes this very much.

  —How soon can a birth happen?

  The doctor strokes his chin and scratches his head.

  —In my professional opinion, I’d say we need another week or so to be sure the baby’s lungs are fully developed before inducing birth.

  The preacher looks dismayed.

  —A week’s too long.

  The doctor and the preacher debate the merits of trying to contract a biological calendar to suit the commune’s spiritual needs. The room empties as people edge away from them. They stand close together, and each time the preacher speaks, the doctor squirms and chooses his words very carefully. One is science, the other is art. One should balance the other. But in this case, only one can win.

  FIFTEEN

  As the preacher showers before the night’s service, he sings “Tooty Fruity.” He calls in one of his personal assistants, the one responsible for goods and services, to help with the zip of his jumpsuit. He says it is stuck. He says that he could use the expertise of his old makeup lady right now, God rest her soul. To powder the shine from his face, yes, and she was a talented seamstress. She took one look at the picture of the outfit in Rolling Stone magazine and made a copy of it for him, and it fits like a dream, but she was lousy with zips. He stands with both feet in the garment, which rests around his ankles. All he wears are his white briefs. He says his underwear is the only thing he would not let the old woman make for him. He grabs his crotch.

  —I wouldn’t let the old coot take these measurements. Now, if you were my tailor . . .

  He trails off. His assistant locks eyes with him, smiles, and kneels at his feet, ostensibly to fix that tricky zip.

  The preacher arrives at the tent feeling much too ebullient for the occasion. He curses the fact that his sermon has to be as solemn an occasion as a funeral service. His challenge, he thinks, will be to convert his glee to solemnity. Every impulse toward joy, he will steer to despair. He has held sway over people since his teens. He was born for this. You tell people something, anything, with enough conviction, and they believe you.

  The preacher steps into the tent and the congregation hushes. He stands in front of the coffin, falls to his knees, and sobs. His assistants rush to him and help him to his feet while he wipes his eyes. He tries to speak and cannot get a clear word out. He turns to the front row.

  —Help me. Help me find the strength to do this, brothers and sisters.

  Trina and her mother and a few others at the front of the room rush to the stage and form a circle aroun
d him, hugging him and praying. The congregation wails. Someone shouts, God is love. Another voice launches into 1 Corinthians 13:

  —Love is patient, love is kind . . .

  The congregation takes up the verse at various points, some a few words behind, others a few words ahead, and together they create this vibrant humming in the room.

  The assistants peel the arms off the shoulders of the preacher and free him from the collective embrace. The volunteers trickle back to their seats. Joyce tries to pull Trina with her before she feels the preacher’s firm grip on her daughter’s arm. Joyce releases, and after Trina gives her a reassuring look, she labors back to her seat. The preacher straightens, wipes his face, and keeps his grip on Trina’s arm. He faces the congregation, and with each word, he shakes Trina so her wrist wobbles and her whole body shakes.

  —Speak for me, my child, I am laid low with grief. My heart is heavy. My tongue is frozen with grief. Speak for me with your gift of tongues.

  Trina looks at Father. He hands the microphone to her. She looks at her mother, Rose, the rest of the congregation ringed by guards, and last, the coffin next to her. She thinks of Ryan but cannot speak. The words will not come. If only she had her flute. She would play it for Ryan, the old woman, and for Adam.

  —Speak for me, Trina, think of your happiest moment and speak from your heart for all of us.

  Trina closes her eyes. She walks hand in hand with her mother along a tree-lined street in a small town on the west coast of another continent. What is her paradise. Sycamore seeds swirl down from the tall trees, and she tries to catch them with her one free hand. The seeds bounce off her and her mother, gentle prods by the very tips of very small fingers lowered by the trees. The seeds swirl down in whispers. Branches wave in the trees. The last slice of the day’s sun climbs the trunks to nest for the night in the treetops.

  —Father, yesterday I was a child. I did things without thinking what I was doing. Today I’m a young woman. I must think about everything that I do from now on. Tomorrow I’ll be old and responsible for taking care of others. The day after that I’ll be dead, just like Miss Taylor, lying here. And in all that time I’ll do nothing to spoil my chance to get to heaven. I’ll live like the example of Miss Taylor. I can do nothing to ruin my chance to enter paradise, not with you, Father, to guide me.