Children of Paradise: A Novel

by Fred D'Aguiar

  She hands the microphone back to the preacher, but he asks her to repeat what she has just said, every syllable of it, exactly the way she said it. She closes her eyes and closes her hand in the air around the microphone, and in her grasp she feels a sycamore seed newly plucked from the air. In her mind’s eye she offers it to her mother. Her mother opens her hand and she, too, grasps a seed. They trade.

  Trina repeats the words she said and remembers them all in the exact order. She opens her eyes and the congregation still has their eyes closed with their ears turned toward her as they wait for more. The preacher picks up Trina. Kisses her. Holds her high for the audience to see and appreciate her. Kisses her again. Takes the microphone from her, releases her, and steps away from her, pointing.

  —Ladies and gentlemen! Boys and girls! Our very own Trina!

  The applause deafens. Trina waves at her mother, who blows her kisses upon kisses with both hands. She draws an open hand toward Father, who bows. She points at the sky. The head teacher nods in approval. The band and choir begin.

  —Yes, Jesus Loves Me.

  The congregation changes the applause to handclapping and bursts into song. The preacher guides Trina to her seat and heads back onto the stage as Trina’s mother hugs and kisses her. People reach over and pat Trina and congratulate Joyce. Trina asks the woman next to her to trade seats with Rose, who sits three rows back, and the woman obliges happily and Rose moves next to Trina. The preacher raises his arms and the singing quiets. He points with both hands down the center aisle to the back exit, and the doctor walks in with two nurses. The doctor holds a minute bundle in his arms. The audience stops singing altogether. The band ceases. A slight mewling sound emanates from the bundle, a distant alarm. The congregation cannot believe its ears. The doctor climbs onto the stage, and the preacher takes the bundle into the crook of his right arm, and with his left he brings the microphone very close to the baby’s face and the alarm grows and fills the room and the audience holds its breath to listen and they hear, amplified over the loudspeakers, the small voice, hardly recognizably human, barely a breath, that can only truly be the cry of a newborn child. Pandemonium breaks out. People faint, fall into fits, howl, scream with joy, pull out their hair, and jump repeatedly on the spot, as if skipping to two ropes at once. The preacher holds the brittle bundle high in the air to cheers and applause, and a commune photographer snaps several shots with his flash. Adam runs to the bars of his cage and rattles them and hoots and cartwheels.

  The preacher slowly relays the bundle to the doctor, who cuddles the premature baby and, flanked by two nurses, troops out of the tent. People stretch to touch the doctor, any part of his white gown. The nurses fend them off. They thank him for delivering a miracle to the commune. They keep shaking their heads to clear them but seem unable to manage even that small act of contrivance. Rose pats Trina and tells her she is great. Trina is not so sure. She buries her face in her mother’s chest, and her mother hugs her.

  —You’re a beautiful and very smart young woman. You make your mother proud.

  Joyce closes her eyes. The prayer hall bubbles with spirited chatter. The preacher stands and looks all around the hall and soaks in the success. Everything went as planned, but just in case Trina’s part turned out wrong, the preacher had his Plan B and it involved the baby. The reverend takes a seat in his high chair and drinks a tall glass of ice water and motions for the coffin to be carried back to the infirmary for burial in the morning. The congregation hushes as four guards position themselves two on either side of the coffin, dip their shoulders under it, straighten up on the count of three, and walk in lockstep out of a side exit with people reaching in front or behind them to touch the coffin. Everyone applauds as the assistants leave with the preacher, followed by Joyce and Trina. They head for the preacher’s house and one of his famous late-night parties.

  —Don’t worry, Trina, we won’t stay long, you may be a young woman, but you are still my child, and you have to get your beauty sleep.

  As they traipse toward the preacher’s house, Trina tries to match her step with her mother’s. The preacher invites the two to come closer to him and his assistants, Nora, Dee, and Pat. He rubs Trina’s head and asks her to give him a moment with Joyce. The head teacher takes Trina’s hand and slows her pace to allow the preacher, Joyce, and the three assistants to float ahead.

  —You know I’ve decided to give you another chance, Joyce.

  —Thank you, Father.

  —Don’t let me down this time.

  —What do I have to do?

  —Make a trip to the capital for me.

  —Without Trina?

  —Yes, without Trina. What kind of fool do you take me for?

  —I don’t want to leave her, Father.

  —It’s only for a few days.

  —Couldn’t I—

  —I’m giving you another chance, woman. You want it or not?

  —Yes, Father.

  The doctor calls out in the dark, and the large group of assistants, guards, and heads of security, education, supplies, accounting, farming, community relations, trade, with Trina and Joyce and a few other special guests, all stop.

  —Father, I need you at the infirmary.

  The preacher waves the group on to his house with an order to have fun and adds in a mock-severe tone that they had better remember to save him a bite to eat and a drop to drink if they know what’s good for them. He leaves with the doctor in the opposite direction. Whatever the doctor whispers to him makes him run his hands in rapid succession through his hair, and the two men increase their walking pace almost to a trot. Some of the group heading to the preacher’s house notice the urgency, and they look at each other but think it better to say nothing in front of people who are present as guests and are not part of the inner workings of the commune.

  This is typical of the two modes of talk in public. One kind is meant for the community as a whole and includes generalities about social and biblical conduct. The other talk is for all those privy to the intricacies of daily decision-making about the community. A speaker always takes stock of who is present before saying anything. If there were a third mode of talk, it might be the delicacy with which people in charge of the various operations critical for the smooth running of the commune never say anything to the preacher that they think may be judged by him as a bad career move on their part.

  Music, food, and drinks break out at the house, soft drinks to begin with and church music. Trina and her mother eat fried chicken and coleslaw, imported apple pie and cream, and drink as much reconstituted Kool-Aid as they can. Trina burps helplessly and covers her mouth with glee and hides a few treats in her pockets for her friends back at the dormitory. Joyce yawns, and Trina, triggered by her mother, yawns, too. An assistant notices and says they can leave and thanks them for their contribution to a successful funeral service. Several of the guests file out with Joyce and Trina. The music starts even before the front door closes. A few steps from the house, Joyce makes out the strains of Elvis intoning “Pork Salad Annie” and the clash of glasses.

  A generator at the bakery outstrips the cicadas, the occasional bark of a dog, or hoot from the forest. Trina looks at Adam’s cage and distinguishes his bulky outline standing at the bars, staring at them. Adam is fused to the night, the faintest seam of darkness thickening into flesh—the bold evening surrounding the bolder outline of the gorilla. She wonders how good his eyes are in this thick dark, if a creature like Adam might be able to look in a forest with Ryan lost somewhere and be able to find him. She waves at Adam just in case he can see her. Adam waves back and hoots to let her know, in case she cannot see him. His call makes her stop her mother and beg for three seconds and rush to the cage and say something to Adam that causes him to stare into the forest. She runs back to her mother.

  —What’s that about?

  —Nothing, Mum.

  Trina’s mother kisses her good night at the door of the children’s dormitory and leaves with the ot
her adults for the women and men’s accommodations. The moment Trina closes the door behind her, Rose and the others crowd around to hear about the party. She gives them the treats, and as they nibble, she answers as many questions as she can about the decor and the food and drink and the topics of conversation. She says the preacher got called away to the infirmary by the doctor, and knowing that the preacher was not at the house with Trina stops many of the questions that have to do with what it is like to be with him in his private space, since all they ever see of him is in public. Trina cannot tell them about her preparations for the sermon. The preacher made it clear to her, along with the head teacher and assistants, that all of her time in his house getting ready for the sermon had to be “our secret,” as he, and they, put it.

  —Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies.

  This creates an awkward silence in the dormitory. Rose asks about her new dress. Trina says it was the last item made by Miss Taylor before she took ill and died. It is a dress for a grandchild the old woman dreamed about, one of her dream children, since she had none. The children ask Trina if she feels different with the Holy Spirit in her body. Is it a voice she hears that issues her instructions, or a force she feels that guides her, or is she in a trance, taken over and unaware of anything, the time she approached the gorilla, the other time she dared to answer back to the preacher in a way no other child has ever done, tonight as she addressed the congregation. Trina says she is tired and will talk to them about it another day, since she is not going anywhere and neither are they.

  She climbs under her bedding, retrieves her pajamas from under her pillow, and changes out of her dress with a series of orchestrated maneuvers in the dark.

  At the infirmary, the doctor and the preacher remain behind a curtain beside a couple of nurses with wet faces. The nurses disconnect tubes from the arm of a patient and cover her face by pulling the bedsheet. The doctor pulls back the sheet and reveals a young woman with eyes open just a tad and mouth slightly agape. He says the mother could not be saved, that she died during the service, not half an hour after the baby was cut from her. She was too weak for the sedation and operation. He tried everything to save her, but she hemorrhaged badly; only a total blood transfusion could have saved her. The infirmary does not stock that amount of blood. The doctor weeps. The preacher says it is a tragedy, but he needs the doctor to focus, now more than ever. He asks about the baby. The baby seems to be doing fine under the circumstances.

  —Who else knows about this?

  The doctor answers that only those present at the bedside know. The preacher says they should keep it that way, and he summons his assistants and two bodyguards. Everyone groups around the bed and listens as the preacher issues instructions. They stare at the young mother, who seems more asleep than dead. He covers her face and makes each person repeat specific parts of his plan. He says his instructions must be followed to the letter. He asks them all to bow their heads. He whispers a last prayer over the body of the dead mother of the miracle child:

  —Absolve, we beseech Thee, O Lord, the soul of Thy servant from every bond of sin, that being raised in the glory of the resurrection, she may be refreshed among the Saints and Elect. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

  Everyone murmurs and makes the sign of the cross. They tiptoe away from the covered dead.

  The young guard in his complete body cast and the other patients feign sleep. They keep very still and listen hard. They hear whispers and receive confirmation of their suspicion as a gurney is wheeled out in darkness and the bed stripped. They cry without making a sound by turning to a wall or burying faces in pillows. The nurses tiptoe and work through the night. Outside the infirmary, the bodyguards transfer the dead woman from the gurney and into a wheelbarrow. They aim torches into the night and, with shovels and rifles, head toward a clearing at the far end of the compound, cleared long ago during the commune’s construction for the commune’s inevitable dead, the first of whom happened to be the makeup lady and seamstress, Miss Taylor, who still lies in the coffin under the tent. The first dead but not the first buried: That honor goes to this mother. She is wrapped in the hospital sheet that lay over her at the time of her death. The guards drop her into the hole they’ve already dug and shovel dirt over her, not too much dirt, just enough to cover her so that if people were to look into the hole, they would see a shallow grave waiting for a coffin.

  SIXTEEN

  The young guard cocooned in his body cast enjoys hearing the nurse read aloud from the Bible his favorite passages about martial matters. She reads, and he daydreams not just about opposing armies but about the two of them, as generals facing each other. Before he became a prefect, he performed dull chores and daydreamed to pass the time. As a prefect, he watched over swaths of children working in a daze and guessed they daydreamed their way through those chores, while he dreamed where he stood. He became a guard and the dreams stayed with him. And here he lies, still relying on dreaming to make it through these long stretches of time. In this daydream he tumbles with the nurse, a synchronized pair, naked in moonlight. He stops abruptly in his fantasy with an erection pointed upward and stuck painfully under his body cast. He cannot move, and the predicament hurts and jolts him from his fantasy. He calls to the nurse for help, and she stops reading and takes a look at his troubles and calls another nurse, who takes a peek and calls a third.

  —Vascular constriction is required, won’t you say, Nurse.

  —Yes, we could use a needle to extract some blood, perhaps.

  —Too risky. How about a direct lowering of the temperature around the site?

  The nurses introduce crushed ice to the young man’s crotch and suggest he visualize his time in the cage with the gorilla to alter his circulation. He complains about the burn and they ask if he prefers them to draw some blood with a needle or cut off the offending object. That last suggestion works best as a visual aid. The nurse who reads to him uses her tongs to pull the willful object from under the cast and relieve the guard. The nurses leave him alone with the ice pack. He closes his eyes and soon his pain and embarrassment ease somewhat. Despite all his broken bones at least one thing on him is still working, and not an unimportant thing. He smiles. He is grateful to be alive.

  He looks over at the young mother’s bed that attracted so much attention during the night. He recognizes the nurse who has been reading to him. She lies propped up on the mattress, not wearing her usual nurse’s uniform but dressed in the raiment of a patient, with a bassinet next to her. She folds her arms and looks around to see if anyone dares say anything. The young man says he read somewhere that a baby likes to listen to its mother’s voice. He suggests that she read the Bible to the baby. He says if she feels up to it, maybe she could walk over to his bed and wheel the baby along with her and read to him and at the same time read to her child. The new mother likes this idea very much. She says movement is good for her after her operation and indicates her bandaged stomach. She moves in slow motion as she wheels the crib to the bedside of the young man. He asks if she knows her Corinthians and does she mind starting there. She says she knows her Corinthians back to front and is happy to oblige him.

  The guards walk the coffin of the makeup lady to the hole prepared for her. Dressed in black, they march in step and pass people out early on chores to milk cows, feed and clean the massive pigsty, and cook breakfast for the multitudes. All pause and cross themselves as the funeral cortege passes. The guards lower the coffin sealed with the makeup lady’s remains and her Bible and favorite makeup compact. The coffin sits lopsided in the depths. The men pick up shovels resting in a wheelbarrow beside the hole and shovel dirt onto the coffin until the hole fills to the brim and then pat the humped rectangle with the backs of their shovels.

  The community carpenter hammers a wooden cross into the soft red earth at one end of the rectangle. The cross, made by him, bears the old lady’s name and age. He wanted her year and place of birth and her favorite couple of lines from Script
ure. But Nora, Dee, and Pat take turns reminding the carpenter of some crucial community tenets about the treatment of the dead.

  —The past life of everyone at the commune is irrelevant, and all you need to know is her age.

  —Everyone alive remains a child in the eyes of the Lord, and all their earthly lives will be over in the blink of an eye, and the only life that matters is everlasting life in the kingdom of heaven.

  —Forget the convention of adoration of the dead with quotations and elaborate graves.

  —That practice derives from a belief that this life, lived on a short fuse on this earth, is the only one worth living and therefore the only one in need of glorification.

  —And that is devilishly wrong.

  —And devilish.

  The preacher keeps all legal documents belonging to the community, from birth certificates to passports, in a safe place close to him. Those paper markers from their former existences—full of sin and meaninglessness—do not apply to their new condition of rebirth as children of God, children of the Most High, in line for direct entry into the kingdom of heaven, children of paradise in waiting. And when they are delivered unto Him (not if, for this is the only certainty in a life of chance and accident, thanks to their trust of the preacher to steer them along the lane of righteousness), when they arrive, Miss Taylor will be there to greet them.

  The preacher tells his followers that they are blessed like no other community on earth. He promises them that only the old die here and the young are happy and they live to a ripe old age. He says everything the people do is in preparation for their entry into the kingdom of heaven. Their physical and temporal lives on earth amount to a series of devout acts to prepare them for this stop of the physical clock and beginning of a spiritual eternity. The death of the young woman in childbirth upsets his philosophy and breaks his promise to his followers. He cannot inform them about it and her relatives overseas least of all. She joined his church and cut her ties with the world of disconsolate sinners. Her pregnancy was out of wedlock, by a man who had regular contact with the commune in his capacity as a delivery person but who abandoned her because she refused to leave the church and go with him. The life left behind is a blessing for everyone. The old woman dies, the baby is born. That is the equation. And if it means the death of the mother spoils the binary symmetry of one departure matched by one arrival, then the despoliation will be restricted and confined to a few minds. He will keep it from the heads of the community at large and maintain the purity of the equation. One death balanced by one birth.