Left on Paradise (10 page)

“I do need some water.”

Ryan said he’d go with her and soon they walked toward the stream—where they filled their canteens and started back for their untrimmed trees. When they came to a fork in the trail—one path leading to the beach and the other toward their work—Ryan asked Maria if she felt like swimming.

Maria nodded.

“But first,” the young woman said, “I’ve got to eat something. I’m famished.”

“I have bread in my sack,” Ryan replied, “and we can crack a coconut. Maybe I can find a mango for dessert.”

“A little siesta does sound nice.”

It took them a few minutes to reach the bay where the Pishon River reached the sea. There, Ryan picked up a coconut from the ground and shook it. Hearing sloshing, he cracked the nut with a stone and let Maria take the first drink. When she dribbled a bit of coconut water on her chin, Ryan wiped it off with a forefinger.

“You promised me a swim,” Ryan said as he pointed to the lagoon. “We’d better take it before the noon whistle. Lisa’s a stickler with her schedules.”

Maria untied her boots, then emptied her pockets and started for the water in her tee shirt and shorts—though stopping just as her knees splashed in the lagoon.

“I just remembered,” the young woman said, “this is salt water. Our clothes will be sticky when they dry—and we still have to sweat in the sun.”

Ryan also had removed his boots, stripped his shirt, and waded knee-deep into the lagoon. “But it feels good now. What should we do?”

Maria smiled. “We have two options: we can swim nude or we can rinse off in the stream afterwards.”

“There is,” Ryan said, “a bucket near the stream which ...”

“Which,” Maria said with a laugh, “Kit would prefer we use.”

When Ryan turned his back toward shore and took a step into deeper water, Maria followed until the water lapped at her hips. For a second time, she hesitated.

“I don’t want to ruin this bra,” Maria said. “Turn around.”

As Ryan turned his back, Maria lifted her shirt, slipped through her shoulder straps, and unsnapped her bra. After pulling it through her sleeve, she threw the bra to shore and slipped under the surface. When she came up, she saw Ryan glance at the tee shirt clinging to her breasts. As she tugged to separate the wet shirt from her chest, Ryan blushed and turned away.

The two neighbors swam an hour before returning to work.

Alan climbed to the crown of the coconut tree and looked down. Panic struck and he twisted around the crown—his arms and legs secured to the foot-thick trunk with braided rope—to survey forest and beach, but saw nothing.

The twins were gone.

“Boys, get back here!” the caretaker shouted into the forest. “Keep away from the water!”

No one answered as Alan scanned the area a third time and saw nothing. He shimmied down the tree, soon touching earth. It was at that very moment that he saw skin flash through the bushes: a shirtless boy in hiding. As the boy darted toward the beach, Alan started to chase before he suddenly stopped to look for the twin—immediately seeing that the second twin was running toward camp.

Alan froze.

One boy was headed into forest and the other for water. Only when he heard the squawk of a gull did the beleaguered babysitter sprint for the sea, turning his head to yell for Theodore to stop where he was. Theodore kept running and so did Alan.

Wham!

Alan smashed into a tree. The impact was violent and he bounced back hard, landing on his back. He felt his head spin, the world go black, and his body go limp—waking a moment later as one boy tapped his forehead with a stick and a second giggled out loud.

“Agghh ... What ... Where ... Give me that damned stick.”

The boy wasn’t particularly quick and Alan seized the stick without much trouble, shaking the stick at Theodore and Tyrone before breaking it against a tree and hurling both halves into the forest.

“Sit down,” Alan ordered with a snarl—and both boys did as they were told while the injured man sat up slowly, blood dripping down his cheek and his bruised eye already swollen shut. Blood flowed from his forehead and his cheek was dark purple, with bits of bark smashed into torn skin. When he checked his teeth, he noticed that while none of them were loose, his lip felt fat.

Now Alan staggered to his feet and picked up a burlap bag half-filled with coconuts while wiping blood from his face and flinging it to the earth.

“You little sh ... boys better follow me home or I won’t be the only one hit with a stick.”

The boys followed close, afraid to talk as they walked behind the bruised and bloodied adult. Only when they reached the safety of camp did they sprint past their ill-tempered guardian to romp. For his part, Alan found a bottle of aspirin in the medicine box to mitigate a headache that had begun well before he ran into the tree. Afterwards, he told Heather he’d failed to pick his quota of fruit and asked if she’d help.

While Heather called for Linh’s daughters and started toward the lagoon with a wood crate and canvas bags, Alan confined the boys to their parent’s tent (where they played pirates on their sleeping bags). When the boys finally slipped from the tent, they sat near the kitchen area and made jokes about Alan—eventually deciding he should be called a cracked coconut head.

The injured adult found no amusement in their antics and several times warned the boys to leave him alone.

By the first full week’s end, the village showed signs of good order and Lisa and Charles had drafted an urban development plan adopted almost verbatim by the rest of the village—especially proposals to establish a recycling center and raise a storage barn. Indeed, based on their push for a central village with planned development, tents were rearranged into a square: sixteen tents in four rows (each one fifteen feet apart) and eleven were zoned residential. Tiffany and Brent shared a tent with their twins and Viet and Linh with their daughters. Five additional tents were assigned to married and cohabiting couples. Of the single villagers, Hilary and Lisa a shared a female dormitory while Jose, Jason, Maria, and Heather each chose to live alone.

Residential tents mostly were nylon and stood between five and seven feet. Many were single-room homes (though family tents included nylon partitions that provided a veneer of privacy). As for the larger storage tents, they were made of canvas—flaps tied open on both sides for airflow—and pitched in rows near the commons. One contained a firewood reserve, loose piles of kindling, and waterproof tins of matches. Another housed bottled water and emergency rations (mostly unopened MREs and decades-old C-rations) while a bright orange tent beside them stored camp records and the nucleus of a library. A hospital tent was pitched nearby and a tool tent behind—with the hospital tent including medical emergency kits and cabinets of medicinal supplies while the tool tent stored little more than a tool chest, boxes of hardware goods (such as nails and screws), and sawhorses on which shovels and axes were stored safely above the dew-drenched floor.

The village’s public layout also was simple. The four rows of residential tents were pitched on the north side of the camp and cords of firewood stacked to the west. On the south side was the cooking and dining area and in the center was an open lot for public meetings and children’s play. Cooking facilities included two fire pits twenty feet apart—one a small rock-filled pit for grilling and the other a bonfire emplacement used for warming toes and drying clothes (both fire pits were equipped with canvas tarps and poles that could be stretched as cover in the event of rain). Dining facilities were limited to a twenty-foot dining fly covering a picnic table (made from a self-assembly kit) surrounded by log stumps used as chairs. Nylon mesh fell to its sides, allowing air to circulate while keeping tropical insects out. Even in Paradise, insect bites itched.

Cords of firewood stacked beneath the umbrage of a beech tree west of the village were not counted among emergency stores kept in the canvas tent, but were considered the deadwood, driftwood, and drying logs slated for everyday consumption. An east-leading path led to a bridge across the Pishon River—from which perishable goods were submerged in the cool water of the stream in a plastic crate. Indeed, an assortment of food and other goods stored in the water included a case of wine, two canned hams, and a sealed tub of medicines. Further south of the commons and dining area (separated by a long walk that kept its odor at bay), there was a sewage and recycling center where waste products were transformed into compost and mulch. Between the dining areas and the bridge a nature preserve was situated—where several trees already had been trimmed for children’s play. To its south stood an old growth forest officially constituted as an environmental sanctuary. Open pasture and farmland were being cleared to the north of the residences. To the west, the main trail split into separate paths to the beach or lagoon not far from where the Pishon River emptied into the sea.

A cold breakfast was served late Saturday morning—the first day of rest after eight days of uninterrupted work. Alan’s child-watching troubles not withstanding, the staff had doubled their efforts Friday and even baked an extra batch of flat bread and prepared a vat of vegetable soup for reheating. Several gallons of the soup were poured into glass jars and sealed with wax, then wrapped in plastic bags for refrigeration in the stream while a smaller pot of the soup was reheated for Saturday’s lunch. While several villagers promised to gather food or carry supplies to a planned dinner party, nothing really needed to be worked until later in the afternoon and most inhabitants spent the day resting, exploring, or playing. Some read books and others took hikes. Lisa jogged twice around the entire island, though she proved to be the only westerner who hurried to do anything that day.

9

The First Holiday

“Hey guys, what’s going on?”

Ryan walked toward Kit—who sat on a log at camp’s edge, her legs crossed at the ankles and a summer skirt pulled to her knees. Two children played beside her, each one digging into a shallow hole with a stick. Both answered with the high-pitched voices of very young boys.

“I’m making a stick hole,” one said.

“I’m digging dirt,” his brother added as both returned to their play, not long distracted by the irrelevance of adults.

Ryan looked at his wife. “What’re you doing here, Kit?”

“Alan had a headache.”

“Where’s Heather?”

“With the girls.”

“So you’re stuck babysitting on a Saturday? This is our time. Alan can do his own work.”

Kit stretched her legs, toes pointed outward and lifted a few inches from the ground before lowering them as she answered. “I wanted to take them for a walk.”

Ryan folded his arms as he stared at the boys. One flung dirt into his brother’s hair and giggled. Almost on cue, both threw dirt as fast as they could—at least until Kit called to them.

“Settle down,” Kit said. “Do you want a hurt eye like Alan?”

The boys laughed.

“He looks like a coconut eye,” one boy declared.

“Yeah,” his twin said, “he’s a coconut head.”

After Kit warned the boys to be nice, they returned to their digging and the older soon found a worm curled around his improvised shovel, squealing with glee at the size of his captive. His brother dug frantically to find his own prize, though he settled for a large beetle following several minutes of fruitless searching. As Kit watched the boys play, she leaned forward—her hands folded and eyes sparkling. She paid little attention to her husband.

“Kit,” Ryan said after a time, “let’s take a walk. By ourselves.”

Kit didn’t turn her eyes from the boys.

“In a while.”

“Let’s go now. You are one beautiful pilgrim, so ...”

”Ryan Godson,” Kit said as she put a forefinger to her lips, “stop that talk. These children have ears.”

“I mean it, Kit. Maybe we can take a swim. By ourselves.”

“In a bit. I told Alan I’d watch the twins till dinner.”

“Alan can fend for himself,” Ryan said with a voice both pained and sharp. “You’re my wife and it’s been a long week. I’d really like to be alone for a while. Abstinence isn’t exactly the paradise I’d planned.”

Kit brushed her fingers across Ryan’s shoulders. “You’re right,” she whispered, “but I did promise and I never had a chance to be with young children before. It was always nannies and formals. Can’t you wait just a bit?”

“I suppose I’ll have to. I wouldn’t want to impose upon Alan.”

Kit forced a smile. “Sit down, Ryan. Beside me.”

Ryan took a seat beside his wife, but looked to the forest—sullen and unspeaking. Only after Kit nestled against his shoulder did he relax.

“It’s been a long week,” Ryan whispered.

“We’ll make it up,” Kit replied. “Maybe we can camp by ourselves on the beach. Somewhere secluded.”

Ryan moved an arm around Kit’s waist as the boys remained engrossed with their growing menagerie of insects and annelids. Most of the bugs were dead, although some worms still thrashed and wriggled about as they tried to burrow underground.

“You know, Ryan. Sometimes ...” Kit cut herself short.

“Sometimes what?”

“You’ll think it silly.”

“I never would.”

“It’s just sometimes I wish I could have a baby.”

Ryan turned red. “We talked about it beforehand, Kit. We both agreed. It wasn’t only my choice.”

“No, Ryan, I’m not saying it was. Or even that we made a mistake. I guess the world really is overpopulated and children do require more than we’re able to give. I’m just saying once in a while I wish ... I mean, I envy Tiffany. They’re so sweet and they really do love her.”

“Maybe they do,” Ryan replied, “but remember all the troubles and tribulations.”

“Not in Paradise.”

Ryan looked to the clouds for a few seconds before turning back to his wife. After looking at her for a long while, he spoke.

“Maybe,” Ryan whispered, “it’d be nice, but we made our choice.”

“Some choices can be reversed.”

“Not here. Not now.”

“Maybe down the road we ...”

“I understand your regrets,” Ryan said, “but you’re almost thirty-seven. It’s getting a little late for changes.”

“I just wonder sometimes,” Kit said as she dug her toes into the dirt. “That’s all.”

“Think of it this way,” Ryan explained, “you’re their mother now. From each according to her ability and to each according to her needs.”

Kit forced another smile and turned to the children as Ryan stroked the back of her neck. She didn’t stir when he stood to leave.

“I’ll catch you tonight, Kit. You stay with the boys.”

“It’s all right?”

“Yeah, but you belong to me tonight. Agreed?”

Kit kissed her husband on the cheek before he left, then spent the rest of the afternoon making mud pies while Ryan changed to swimming trunks and started for the beach.

The sun had risen to its zenith as four hikers waded through the Pishon River. Vines that once thwarted passage through the stream had been cut away and the teenaged girl leading the way brushed aside the few that remained—the other hikers following at her heels as she sloshed upstream.

It was Heather who led, with her parents and Dr. Morales following close behind. Soon after the party reached a bend, they came to a small waterfall. Though it was only ten feet tall and a yard wide, its water dropped vertical into a shallow pool that overflowed into rock-strewn rapids. Brush grew thick on either side of the stream.

“We’re there,” Heather said, a little short of breath. The last twenty yards to the falls were steeper than before.

“About time,” her mother said, “You’re killing me and I haven’t written my will. The state would get everything.”

Heather rolled her eyes.

“Mother,” the young woman said, “you’ve already given me paradise. What more can there be?”

“The will won’t be for you, but for your father. How would he ever function without a wife?”

Mother and daughter alike laughed out loud as the two men smiled.

Dr. Morales hurried to catch up with Heather—who now pointed at the cliff over which the small stream cascaded.

“To the right of the water,” the teenaged girl said, “do you see them?”

The anthropologist walked toward scratches in the rock. They weren’t much, just simple etchings. Most marks were straight lines—several ran parallel to one another and others crossed at right angles—while a few carvings were perfectly formed circles. The scratches were easily identified as human cuts into the weather-worn stone. It was clear that men (or women) had carved their marks into the rock, perhaps hundreds of years ago.

Dr. Morales grew excited. “What a discovery,” he shouted. “How did you find these etchings?”

Heather blushed.

“To tell the truth,” she whispered, glancing at her parents, “I come here to shower. It’s a little more private and ... You won’t tell anyone will you? Good. I wash my clothes while I bathe. It’s like a cold shower. Anyway, I dropped my dress near this wall of rock and showered. Afterwards, I noticed these indentations. At first I thought that someone had vandalized the island—till I realized the marks looked old.”

“Quite perceptive, Heather. These petroglyphs are older than you are. They must be at least fifty and maybe hundreds of years old. There’s not much thawing and freezing in the tropics, but there is plenty of rain, so any markings eventually fade. These aren’t fresh, but they’re not too weather-worn either.”

“Unlike,” Heather said with a smile, “my cotton clothes.”

Dr. Morales paid no heed to the teenaged girl’s fashion concerns, but turned to his academic peers.

“Look at these marks,” the anthropologist said as he rubbed the stone. “Aboriginal scratching of one sort or another. This island was once inhabited—or at least visited.”

Heather’s parents stepped forward to examine their daughter’s discovery, rubbing the marks and asking pertinent questions of the anthropologist while Heather listened in silence. Only when it appeared their discussion was concluding did the girl speak.

“What does it mean, professor?” Heather asked. “Are other people close?”

“That,” Dr. Morales said, “is precisely the issue. And it’s a question I intend to answer. When you told me of this place, I expected to find cracked rocks or vandalism. Or maybe something from the Russians who inhabited the island for a few months. I didn’t expect to find marks showing an ancient human presence. But now that we’ve found petroglyphs, we have to search for their makers. Or at least more marks. I’ll put together an expedition to search beyond the horizon for other islands.”

“That’d be cool,” Heather said. “I’d love to see other places. If I ever return to civilization, I hope to study anthropology.”

“I didn’t know,” the anthropologist replied. “Is that a serious plan?”

“Oh yes,” Charles said, “she’s studied different cultures since she was in elementary school. We’ve always tried to teach her about cultural diversity and social relativism—as well as about indigenous peoples and social mores.”

“Really?” Dr. Morales said as he turned to Heather. “It looks like I have an intern. If you want the job.”

“I’d love it.”

“What’s the work schedule for your neighborhood?”

“We operate on a fifty-hour week,” Joan said. “We select free time ourselves.”

“That’s good,” the anthropologist said. “Maybe we can get together for study and exploration.”

“I’d really love that,” Heather replied. “It’d be so much fun. And good for my education too.”

“If that doesn’t get her into a good anthropology program,” Charles said, “I don’t know what will.”

“Coming here,” Joan said, “is working out even better than we had hoped.”

Heather reached into her backpack for a loaf of bread, which she broke into equal shares for a quick meal. After they returned to the neighborhood, Heather went to the beach while her parents took an afternoon nap, anticipating a late night party.

As for Dr. Morales, the anthropologist declined an invitation to stay for the beach party since he wanted to return to New Plymouth to consider the petroglyphs and begin preparations for a voyage of discovery. He drafted his proposal while the westerners soaked up the last rays of the day.

A bonfire burned on the beach, its flames consuming thick logs and its smoke rising heavenward—where it was dispersed by a gentle breeze into the nothingness of the dark. The green palm wood hissed, crackled, and exploded as it burned. No sooner would the fire fall than someone threw another log into the flames so the inferno again blazed. Red-hot coals filled the shallow pit and were insulated by glowing ash.

Several yards away, an improvised tarp was drawn tight across a crude wooden frame and secured to the sand with two-foot stakes. A table was set beneath the stretched canvas and spread with baked fish and boiled shellfish, as well as bread, crackers, and fruits. Three bottles of wine and a liter of Russian vodka sat on the table: the wine wrapped in wet rags and the vodka nearly gone. Cracked coconut husks and piles of fish bones were scattered near the table, along with a dozen dirty forks and a pile of personal effects. A biodegradable garbage bag overflowed with waste.

Villagers had separated into several groups. The largest party was located at the north edge of the beach and consisted of those villagers still in their twenties. Nearby, two women talked at the water’s edge, their feet lapped by the surging tide. Further away, Tiffany and Brent lounged in lawn chairs while their boys played down the beach under Alan’s supervision. Viet and Linh played cards with their daughters and were joined by Steve after a time. Other couples talked over drinks, sat quiet on the beach, or strolled back to camp.

An hour after supper was finished, Alan marched the twins to their parents. “Here they are.”

A quizzical look crossed Brent’s face as Tiffany explained that she didn’t understand.

Alan answered her with a deliberate tone to his voice and raised eyebrows. “My duty time is up,” he said.

“Ours too—it’s your weekend for domestic duties.”

“That’s dishes and cooking. Not babysitting.”

“I’m afraid,” Tiffany said, staring straight into Alan’s eyes, “you’re quite mistaken. Domestic duty involves the whole household.”

Alan kicked the sand.

“You’re the one mistaken,” Alan said. “I’ve watched your kids all week and suffered for it every day. Now it’s my night off and I’m planning to take a walk with my partner as you did with yours. And these boys aren’t coming with us.”

Turning toward the two girls playing cards with Steve and their parents, Alan spoke out loud.